President Kurmanbek Bakiyev very quickly decided not to prolong the confrontation and fled to the south of the country and eventually abroad from where he is now vowing to reverse the situation; but not even the Americans would join him in that ill-starred venture.
The horticultural revolutions inspired and 'encouraged' by the US throughout Central Asia — 'Rose' in Georgia (2003), 'Orange' in Ukraine in 2004 and 'Tulip' in Kyrgyzstan the following year — are now all spent forces, though all have left behind the seeds of future change once more with the advantages of more freedom and democracy clear to those who seek them.
The Georgian government has never quite recovered from its taunting of the Russian bear and now knows it must be more circumspect about its estimates of international support in the future while the Western gains in Ukraine have almost all been reversed. Though, here again, the complexion of its government means that the habits of democracy and the expectations of the people have been grounded in a way that ensures they will work their way into the body politic. But the Russians will now get their way over continued access to their highly-prized naval base at Sevastopol on the Black Sea, something which the original 'revolution' had thrown into doubt.
But if the retention of the Sevastopol base is central to Russia's central Asian strategy, then so is access to the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan vital for the United States' conduct of the war in Afghanistan. Bakiyev gave access to the base from where Lockheed Hercules and C17 transport aircraft carry vital war material into NATO bases in Afghanistan while aerial refuelling tankers refuel the attack aircraft flying missions over the area. Up to 1,500 troops a day are processed through the base as part of the surge which will place 30,000 extra troops in Afghanistan by the autumn.
The base is marginally less important for the trans-shipment of cargo — only about 20% of it transits Manas while the rest comes overland through Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
When the deal was originally struck it came as a surprise to many as it was difficult to see how it was in Bishkek's long-term strategic interest to allow the Americans into the area. As it turned out, if current reports are to be believed, it did indeed have very little to do with the long-term, national interests of the country but had a lot to do with the financial interests of the Bakiyev family.
Following a well-established approach, which has brought mixed results in Afghanistan, the American administration simply bought the Bakiyev family at a cost of $80m a year, the money being channelled through contracts to supply US forces at Manas outside the capital. Ostensibly it is a small price to pay for a piece of strategic real estate which abuts China's restive Xinjiang autonomous region, is home to the country's Uighur Muslim population and some of its key missile bases. There are also strong population links between the Uighurs in China and those resident in Kyrgyzstan, while there are said to be 100,000 Kyrgyz living in Xinjiang.
On the wider strategic front, Kyrgyzstan provides a very important centre for influencing the Muslim populations throughout the region through its close proximity to the Ferghana Valley, the birthplace and hotbed of Islamic radicalism for the area. If the West has designs on promoting radical Islam as a vehicle for a regime change in either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan is the place from which to mount such an effort; a perhaps more bankable long-term asset than the natural resources on offer in other Central Asian countries.
Following his first tour of the central Asian theatre of interest, the US special representative for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, spoke of the al-Qaeda threat to central Asia when he testified in Washington, apparently for shadowing an expanded role for NATO right up to the borders of Russia and China in response to this broader threat. That assessment followed a two-day consultation in Bishkek by the US Central Command commander, General David Petraeus.
The establishment of the American 'beachhead' in Central Asia was always going to be a hostage to fortune dependent, as it was, on the Russians electing to let it go ahead without interference. At the moment Russia looks to have cashed in on its chips and the US strategy appears to be in tatters.
The US has had an interim assurance from the head of the new government, Roza Otunbayeva, who is a former foreign minister, that the base agreement will be respected, for the moment. So the immediate problem of supporting Afghan operations does not arise. There are powerful financial reasons why the government should let it all continue. Following load protestations from Bakiyev during a visit to Moscow last spring, the rental for the base was boosted from $17m to $63m while the US has pledged to spend another $67m improving the airport which is also the nation's international hub. In a country as poor as it is, that kind of financial incentive will go a long way to shaping decisions at a time when the protesters who ousted Bakiyev were already complaining about the cost of utilities
The US has other options, but for the Afghan war connexion none comes close in terms of convenience and efficiency. If the US loses access to Manas, a replacement base could be found in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan or Georgia; but for the present Washington is hoping that Moscow will be satisfied with the most dramatic so far of its tit-for-tat responses to the colour revolutions. But, who knows, Putin's Russia may decide to up the ante.
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