Bush's Asian Yalta

...European critics note that the space shield (that is, the militarization of space) has become essential to dominating the planet...

...Instead, he had Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov answer laconically that Russia will begin to mount its own Topol missiles with not one but 10 nuclear heads...

...Its admission in those circumstances would only provide a symbolic satisfaction, though, as Putin well understands...

...A notable exception, though, has been putting an end to international terrorism— not to mention even capturing or killing Al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden...

...had a final objective: building a series of oil and gas pipelines across Afghanistan to bring the immense energy resources of the Caspian Sea to consumers in the West...

...The Asian Yalta, however, implies the existence of a partner-adversary with whom a portion of whatever benefits are to be reaped must be shared...

...Still, besides satisfying the national demand for a strong response to the September 11 attacks with a vengeance, the Bush Administration has radically expanded the American sphere of influence in Central Asia...

...Together they had "replaced" the tiny Argentinean company, Bridas, in their dealings both with Turkmenistan satrap Niyazov, who was supposed to furnish the north end of the oil and gas pipelines, and the Mujahedin (Muslim guerrillas) of Afghanistan, who in exchange for a great deal of money were to be "persuaded" to stop battling one another and consent to the southward passage of the oil pipelines...

...But the American President obviously felt Russia's support was needed to persuade world opinion that a Grand Alliance against international terrorism—viewed as providing undeniable proof of the Afghan war's moral legitimacy—had coalesced...

...So the Bush Administration, in short order, has fashioned an "Asian Yalta...

...Naturally, Niyazov has also declared his willingness to house terminals for the oil and gas pipelines that are to transport energy from the Caspian Sea to the Arabian Sea to the West...

...Here the unilateralist philosophy of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice adopted by the American President has proved unbending...

...Actually, the dependency of Georgia and Azerbaijan, headed respectively by Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Heydar Aliyev—both former members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—was already apparent before the onset of the Afghan conflict...

...Once they realized Operation Taliban threatened Russian interests, they began to support and arm the only Taliban adversary left, Ahmed Shah Massoud, a Tajik leader of the Northern Alliance retrenched in the natural fortress of the Panjshir Valley...

...That is, no more aid to the rebels, who until then had been supplied (via Georgia and Azerbaijan) by the Turkish secret services with the blessings of the CIA...

...Two MORE issues that were discussed at the Texas ranch—NATO's enlargement Eastward and the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty (ABM)—need to be examined through the same lens...

...In less than two years the wellequipped, heavily financed Taliban captured or bought out almost all of the Mujahedin military commanders...

...Putin did not raise his voice when Washington informed him last month that the United States was exiting the ABM treaty...

...The Duma announced that its observance of the start-II treaty will be suspended...

...The "Belgrade model" that finally brought down Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic—subversion financed from afar, plus threats and promises—will not be repeated for the moment...

...On the matter of the U.S...

...Putin is a strong advocate of capitalism in Russia, but he is an equally strong defender of Russian national interests...

...He would offer Russia a connection to NATO through an auxiliary organism, yet to be invented, in which Moscow might even be allowed some decisional power...

...Down the road analogous modifications may occur in other parts of the world...

...Recognizing his country's weaknesses, he was open and aboveboard, laying out on the table at Bush's Texas ranch the whole list of unsettled matters between Russia and the United States...

...That explains why the Tajiks of the Northern Alliance were the first to enter Kabul, despite Bush's demanding that they wait until an ethnically broad-based provisional government could be formed...

...Enter now Vladimir Putin, who presented his newfound friend George Bush with a proposal: We will give you the political support you need to liquidate the Taliban, who have become inconveniently dangerous even for you, on two conditions...

...abrogating the ABM treaty to build a "space shield" against hostile missiles, Putin and Bush have remained divided...

...Putin played his few cards with consummate skill, particularly since they were not decisive...

...President Vladimir V Putin not only accepted Washington's embrace with singular dexterity, he even facilitated it by offering his condolences and solidarity after the September 11 tragedy more swiftly than some of America's Western allies...

...On the first there was a modest convergence...

...On the other hand, Russia would be bypassed and deprived of princely royalties plus its influence over the entire Central Asiatic area...

...When the two said goodbye with a firm handshake, each was convinced (or feigned being confident) that he had gained some advantage...

...The additions are Islam A. Karimov's Uzbekistan and Saparmurat A. Niyazov's Turkmenistan...

...What Putin obtained was the end of any external interference with regard to Chechnya...

...This project was initiated at the beginning of the '90s...

...But Putin took a harder line regarding the political structure of Afghanistan after the obliteration of the Taliban regime...

...And certainly they acted with Moscow's approval, in keeping with the ancient Russian proverb President Ronald Reagan liked to quote: "Trust, but verify...

...for the time being, anyway, the West's silence was guaranteed...

...The ousting of Saddam Hussein, for example, could result in the installation of American bases in Iraq, just as was done in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War...

...Between the Tajiks and Islamabad there is absolutely no possibility of pacification, since Massoud's death is believed to have been jointly engineered by Osama bin Laden and the Pakistani secret service...

...Russia could be admitted to that kind of organization...

...It would then be transformed into a loose confederation, the reasoning went, and ultimately would be subdivided into three states: European Russia minus the Northern Caucasus, Western Siberia, and the Far East...

...Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is willing to concede much to a Russia ready to make concessions in turn...

...Putting Russia Back in the Great Game Bush's Asian Yalta By Giulietto Chiesa Rome "THEY'VE done a good job," said a liberal American friend of mine.Hewasspeaking about President George W. Bush's team and the military situation in Afghanistan...

...But where he lacks leverage he does not kick and shout, as Yeltsin was wont to do...

...Moreover, this appeared to be widely confirmed by the Western press, whose treatment of the two leaders made one wonder whether they were part of an old-boy network...

...In this instance, of course, the partner-adversary is Russia, unexpectedly a major player again after a long decade in limbo thanks to its objective weakness and former President Boris N. Yeltsin's bowing completely to American interests...

...The billions of dollars needed to develop it, they add, will be a useful Keynesian tool for setting America's derailed new economy back on track...

...Moscow's opportunism, its willingness to back its former archenemy during the years of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, soon turned Operation Taliban into a liability for the United States...

...By the conclusion of the Afghan war, it will have assured the United States a dominant position in at least four ex-Soviet republics, extending from the Middle East to the region of the Caspian Sea...

...In the first the U.S...

...The project failed because the different Mujahedin factions refused to quit fighting...

...Hence the Taliban movement, launched between 1994 and '95...

...Somalia and Sudan are prime candidates for such an eventuality too...

...Tens of thousands of students of the Koran were prepared for a new Jihad in this manner...

...But Russia was not standing around with its hands in its pockets...

...In the light of subsequent events, one may presume that the agreement reached at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch was neither entirely clear nor fully comprehensive...

...The latter component fit neatly with the strategy of influential Washington circles eager to further weaken Russia and abet its total collapse...

...First, we are to have a say in determining the future government of Afghanistan...

...They were transported to Afghanistan from the refugee camps in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province...

...The military and secret services had filled the void left by Yeltsin...

...Washington would like to overthrow the unreformed former Soviet republic's tyrannical president, but it will have to postpone that limited objective to avoid a confrontation with Moscow...

...On the one hand, a very cheap means of moving an enormous quantity of oil toward the great Western economies would be created...

...The scenario had an economic and a political edge...

...For it did not pass unnoticed by Moscow that the long combined efforts of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the U.S...

...Shortly after the Twin Towers tragedy the Financial Times wrote: "Now we must all become Keynesian again...

...No more Western grumbling about human rights violations in Chechnya either...

...In any event, Putin knows that the decision on NATO'S expansion will be made independently of Russia...

...And second, we are to participate in the benefits from any arrangements for using the energy resources of the Caspian Sea...

...Nor is he going to let Washington decide the future of Central Asia and its vast resources...

...Its recruits came largely from madrassas (Koranic schools) financed by Saudi Arabia, while Pakistan's secret services furnished training, commanders and intelligence for the war against the Mujahedin...

...In exchange he was assured that the Russian sphere of influence in the ex-Soviet republics of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan would not be threatened in the near future...

...In the process it has remodeled the geopolitical relations of the continent to its advantage...

...And Russia has just launched the Gepard, a new generation of nuclear submarines capable of competing with the best American technology· So it seems that the present-day Grand Alliance has not headed off the emergence of a new era of world rearmament...

...Its lead actors were two important oil companies, America's Unocal and Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil...

...In fact, some of their objectives have been achieved...

...China is also known to be accelerating its technological and military capabilities...

...in capitals like Tashkent and Ashkhabad...

...Indeed, there are some who see the systematic extermination of AI Qaeda's tentacles evolving into the multiplication of permanent U.S.basesin every area of the globe where a threat to the economic and political interests of the United States might arise...

...If it feels inclined, it might communicate its sovereign intentions to other parties...

...Dorerìa, noproveria...

...Thus Russia took a conspicuous step backward by implicitly acceding to American claims already made by President Bill Clinton when he declared Central Asia "an area of vital interest for the United States...

...What Putin had to concede was the loss of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, after having been helpless to prevent the loss of Georgia and Azerbaijan...

...What is more, Washington's going it alone in Afghanistan, or at most with the help of England, suggests a downgrading of NATO to essentially a political and diplomatic vehicle...

...What we were really witnessing, though, was the beginning of a rather tough contest between the United States and Russia...

...It was decided, therefore, to "pacify" Afghanistan by imposing a new regime structured on the outside...

...Putin has indicated an interest in such a possibility, while withholding judgment until the situation has been clarified...

...Probably Moscow considers this a temporary tactical withdrawal that, painful as it is, represents the recognition of its actual leverage in the situation...

...Developments in Kabul and surrounding areas over the coming months have to be seen in that context to be properly understood...

...Its aim was to redefine their reciprocal interests and reshape the map of Asia in the glaring light of 9/11...

...For instance, were the Kremlin to discover that it has been tricked or defrauded by Washington, it could easily destabilize the governments friendly to the U.S...

...As the world's sole superpower, the United States apparently does not feel compelled to negotiate with anyone...

...The one significant thing that he has obtained in Europe is a truce in the American offensive against Belarus' Aleksandr Lukashenko...

...After arriving in Kabul in 1996, they advanced with lightning speed and took over 90 per cent of the country...

...has installed a permanent military base...

...How all this will deter, let alone halt, international terrorism is a question no one appears to be asking...

...Minsk can wait...

...True, Russia is no longer a world power, but in its own backyard it is still capable of exerting influence and inspiring fear...

...on the second there was a total divergence...

...Giuleetto Chiesa, a correspondent/or the Italian daily La Stampa who is here making his first New Leader appearance, has covered Afghanistan since the Soviet intervention there in the 1980s...

...Paradoxically, it was Bush himself who put Russia back in the Great Game, and he paid a price that may in the long run prove to be higher than it seems today...

...So all the stops were pulled out by the Administration and the volume of highest-level contacts with Moscow substantially increased the air traffic between the two countries...

...From that moment on, one had the impression of a full understanding between Bush and Putin...

...Now it has merely been all but officially confirmed...

...Putin is not about to give Afghanistan to America as a present...

...The United States, after all, also had to deal with shoring up the shaky regime of General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, and Russia on its part had every reason to respect the requests of the recently assassinated Massoud's Tajik heirs...

...But according to informed Russian sources, Turkmenbashi (the father of the people of Turkmenistan, as Niyazov likes to be called) has put the airport at Mary—strategic for the Soviets during their Afghan war—and possibly the one at Chardzhou into American hands...

...About the second there is little precise information because its capital, Ashkhabad, is off-limits to foreigners, especially correspondents...