Analytical Articles

Almost all analysis of Iranian nuclear capabilities focuses on the Middle East and Europe. Israel, Iraq, or US forces in the Gulf are presumably Tehran’s priority targets. While this assessment may be correct, it overlooks the strategic and political conundrums that will face Central Asia and Russia, which supports Iran’s proliferation, when Iran achieves that capability. Will Iran attempt nuclear blackmail against a Transcaucasian and/or Central Asian state? And like Pakistan in its incitement of conflicts in Kashmir, will Iranian nuclearization lead Iran to support secessionist minorities throughout the region in the belief that other nuclear states are deterred by its capability?

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed at the beginning of July that James Giffen, a New York banker and official adviser to Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, was under investigation for laundering money to Switzerland. Giffen had served as an advisor to Kazakhstan’s president during negotiations with Western oil companies for drilling rights. Giffen is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It is likely that this investigation will continue and implicate more than just James Giffen before the end of the Clinton administration.

The governments of Central Asian perceive the Internet as a threat. For years, the Central Asia governments have been harassing journalists, closing down TV stations, and penalizing independent news outlets for alleged tax violations and administrative abuses. The Internet has become the latest battleground in the war to control information. With control, the governments would have a potent tool to restrict information without the inconvenience of attacks from brick-and-mortar news organizations. But repressing information is a losing battle, as the region greatly needs the access to new ideas and political alternatives that the Internet provides.

Uyghur militants are acquiring much wider connections to the world-wide Jihad movement than ever before, forcing Beijing to cast an equally wide net to contain them. China has no option but to become a major player in Central Asia due to this rising tide of Uyghur unrest in Xinjiang province, along with security threats along its long and porous borders with three Central Asian republics, weapons and drug smuggling, and Islamic militancy from Taliban controlled Afghanistan. China's regional partner in this drive for security is likely to be Iran, rather than its long time ally Pakistan, Russia or the United States. An increased Chinese military and political presence in the region will further complicate the Great Game of influence in Central Asia.

Last week, Kazakhstan's parliament passed a law granting President Nursultan Nazarbayev lifetime powers and privileges, including access to future presidents, immunity from criminal prosecution, and influence over domestic and foreign policy. The statute is unlikely to affect the political landscape of Kazakhstan in the short-term as the 60-year-old leader is eligible to run for re-election in 2006. But it is clear that the leader intends to exert control even after he relinquishes power and will likely handpick a successor. If this oil-rich country can succeed with a credible economic program - one that will improve the standard of living for average Kazakhs and appease the political opposition - the country will likely remain stable in the long term.

A rapid-fire series of recent events draw attention to a reconfiguration of regional interests in Central Asia. Kazakhstan and Turkey were the only countries to stay away from the recent ECO summit in Teheran, using the time instead to have the Turkish foreign minister visit Astana. The presidents of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have created a border commission to demarcate their frontier. And Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have begun security talks. All this comes following recent visits to Central Asia by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

On June 28, 2000, the Joint United Nations Program on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic was released declaring that the spread of HIV/AIDS in China is rampant and has become an extremely severe problem in Xinjiang, China's most northwestern region. The ethnic unrest of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang against Chinese rule has recently gained the attention of the international media. However, the Chinese government has done so little to inform the Uyghur population about China’s AIDS epidemic and the methods to prevent it. Most Uyghurs are not even aware of AIDS or its deadly impact.

An intriguing trend has slowly begun to emerge within the republics of Central Asia. The republics are increasingly turning towards Iran at the expense of Russian influence in the region. The republics may in the future find themselves at the mercy of the character of relations among and between Russia, Iranian, and China. That is to say, if relations between Moscow, Beijing, and Teheran sour, Central Asia may likely be the venue of increased outside interference, meddling, and threats as their larger neighbors struggle to find their respective places in the world.

In a series of public statements last month including a May 17 seminar at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS, Andrei Urnov, head of the Caspian Sea working group of the Russian Foreign Ministry, suggested a new approach to the demarcation of national sectors in the Caspian Sea. His announcement followed a decision by the Security Council of the Russian Federation to re-activate Russian policy in the region through sea-bed delineation for the purpose of subsoil use which may thus signal a qualitatively new development in the stalled negotiations over the legal regime of the Caspian Sea.

On May 25, Pakistan's Chief Executive General Pervaiz Musharraf for the first time explicitly articulated Pakistan's reasons for its continued backing of the Taliban. He stated that in view of the demographic and geographic pattern of Afghanistan's majority ethnic Pashtuns, it is in Pakistan’s national interest and national security interest to support the predominantly Pashtun Taliban regime. Musharraf's public enunciation of an ethnically biased policy towards Afghanistan elicited widespread criticism from the Northern Alliance opposing the Taliban and ex-King Zahir Shah and should further antagonize Russia, Iran and the Central Asian Republics as such a policy makes no accommodation to the national security interests of these neighbors.