Turkmenbashi's Death Could Lead to Another War
OUR NEXT BIG MESS
by Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Chances are that you heard more about Rosie O'Donnell's flame
war with Donald Trump than the passing of Sapamurat "Turkmenbashi"
Niyazov. As seems to occur with increasing frequency, America's media
ignored the most important story of the year.
A handful of news outlets that bothered to cover the 66-year-old
dictator's death wallowed in the humor inherent in the extravagant
personality cult he built up after Turkmenistan gained independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991. Cannier obituary writers noted that the
Central Asian nation "contains many of the world's largest natural gas
fields, and provides gas to Russian and European countries." (Actually,
the largest. Period.) But they missed the main point of the story, one
with dramatic short-term consequences for Central Asia and breathtaking
dangers to the United States during the first half of the new century.
The Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
and--until now--Turkmenistan are all being ruled by the same former
Communist Party bosses who ran them in Soviet times. Niyazov's death
marks the beginning of the end for the post-Soviet authoritarian order
and the beginning of a period of increasing instability, as foreign
powers attempt to monopolize access to oil and natural gas resources
and pipeline routes. Kazakhstan alone may possess more untapped oil
reserves than Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined, and the politics and
economies of the Central Asian republics are closely intertwined. What
is at stake is nothing less than the security and control of the world
economy.
Unless you were one of the five million desperately poor Turkmen
forced to watch while your desert nation's gas wealth was systemically
looted and squandered on such vanity projects as the gilt statue of
Turkmenbashi that dominates the skyline of Ashkhabat and turns to face
the sun (local wags say the sun turns to face it), it was easy to laugh
at the ubiquitous trappings of unhinged egotism. Turkmenbashi's
moon-eyed mug glared from banners hung from the façade of every
government ministry and school, appeared on every denomination of
currency, even on his own brands of vodka and cologne. Everything was
named after him: the country's second-largest city, its airports, a
large meteorite, the month of January. His not-so-little green book of
aphorisms ("Time is a mace. Hit or be hit!"), the Rukhnama, became
required reading for schoolchildren and motorists who sought to renew
their driver's licenses.
Saddam Hussein's reputation for self-indulgence had nothing on
Turkmenbashi. Niyazov's megalomania ranged from the grandiose--at the
time of his death he had just completed the world's largest mosque
(featuring quotes from the Rukhnama, naturally) and had ordered the
construction of a man-made lake in the middle of the Karakum desert--to
obsessive micromanagement. Each Turkmen student's college application
was personally considered by the great man.
Even his commonsense dictates came with a bizarre twist. During the
1990s Turkmenbashi ordered that natural gas, as a national patrimony,
be supplied to Turkmen homes for free. Since most people were too poor
to afford matches, however, it became common practice to leave their
stoves on 24-7. Where foreigners saw hilarity, Turkmen seethed with
resentment; Ashkhabati motorists saved their household garbage so they
could chuck it on the lawn of one of Niyazov's pink pleasure palaces.
A power struggle is underway. Within hours of Turkmenbashi's fatal
heart attack his Constitutionally-mandated successor, Majlis (lower
house of parliament) chairman Ovezgeldy Atayev found himself behind
bars, arrested for an unspecified "criminal investigation." An obscure
deputy prime minister and former dentist, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov,
declared himself acting president and has arranged to have the
Constitution retrofit to validate his rule.
"Many Western analysts," reported The New York Times, "said the country
was unlikely to change and that authoritarian rule would continue under
any of Mr. Niyazov's successors." But Turkmen exiles who lead
opposition parties are itching to fill the vacuum, if not of power, of
charisma, left by Niyazov's demise. Leaders of the nation's five
biggest tribes are jockeying for advantage. And five million Turkmen
who can't afford matches want a piece of the action--and want to get
even with the government thugs who shut down the country's hospitals
and medical clinics.
Berdymukhammedov's regime may keep the lid on the pressure cooker of
Turkmen politics for a short time, but it isn't hard to imagine a
country of former (and present) nomads disintegrating into the chaos of
warlordism as a result of the venting of long-suppressed ethnic and
political rivalries. A Turkmen civil war would quickly turn regional.
Iran and Afghanistan, which share Turkmenistan's southern border, would
side with any faction that could guarantee continued trade, but any
instability would affect the refining of crude from Kazakhstan, a major
world supplier. It would probably end construction of the post-9/11
Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline being built to carry Kazakh oil and Turkmen
gas between Turkmenistan and a Pakistani port on the Indian Ocean.
Everyone is betting that Turkmenbashi's foreign policy of "positive
neutrality" won't last long. Russia has already indicated its intent to
reassert itself in Turkmenistan. Here's where we come in: no American
president, Democrat or Republican, will allow Russia to gain control
over the world's largest energy reserves without a fight. Moreover,
neither Russia nor the U.S. will watch idly as Central Asia implodes
and takes the world economy along for the ride. U.S. troops, currently
based in Uzbekistan, could be sent in to restore order and keep the
Russians out.
Signaling renewed high-level interest in Turkmenistan, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Richard Boucher and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail
Fradkov both attended Turkmenbashi's funeral on Christmas Eve.
Uzbekistan's universally reviled despot Islam Karimov, who got away
with the 2005 massacre of at least 700 civilians at Andijon because of
his country's energy reserves, will almost certainly be an early
casualty of civil strife in Central Asia. A witch's brew of Stalin-era
ethnic gerrymandering and brutal suppression of a nascent Islamist
insurgency, mixed with the collapse of Karimov's Uzbek police state,
could easily take Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan--poor countries barely
recovering from civil conflict and dependant on the urban-based Uzbek
economy--with them. Even Kazakhstan, the most stable of a fragile lot,
is susceptible to an uprising; few Kazakhs have shared in the nation's
oil boom.
Whether or not Turkmenbashi's death directly affects its neighbors,
it's a reminder that Central Asia's autocrats aren't getting younger.
Laugh about the Leader of All Turkmen's excesses now. The storm is
coming.
(Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central
Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel
analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)
COPYRIGHT 2006 TED RALL
DISTRIBUTED BY uclick, LLC/TED RALL
by Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Chances are that you heard more about Rosie O'Donnell's flame
war with Donald Trump than the passing of Sapamurat "Turkmenbashi"
Niyazov. As seems to occur with increasing frequency, America's media
ignored the most important story of the year.
A handful of news outlets that bothered to cover the 66-year-old
dictator's death wallowed in the humor inherent in the extravagant
personality cult he built up after Turkmenistan gained independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991. Cannier obituary writers noted that the
Central Asian nation "contains many of the world's largest natural gas
fields, and provides gas to Russian and European countries." (Actually,
the largest. Period.) But they missed the main point of the story, one
with dramatic short-term consequences for Central Asia and breathtaking
dangers to the United States during the first half of the new century.
The Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
and--until now--Turkmenistan are all being ruled by the same former
Communist Party bosses who ran them in Soviet times. Niyazov's death
marks the beginning of the end for the post-Soviet authoritarian order
and the beginning of a period of increasing instability, as foreign
powers attempt to monopolize access to oil and natural gas resources
and pipeline routes. Kazakhstan alone may possess more untapped oil
reserves than Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined, and the politics and
economies of the Central Asian republics are closely intertwined. What
is at stake is nothing less than the security and control of the world
economy.
Unless you were one of the five million desperately poor Turkmen
forced to watch while your desert nation's gas wealth was systemically
looted and squandered on such vanity projects as the gilt statue of
Turkmenbashi that dominates the skyline of Ashkhabat and turns to face
the sun (local wags say the sun turns to face it), it was easy to laugh
at the ubiquitous trappings of unhinged egotism. Turkmenbashi's
moon-eyed mug glared from banners hung from the façade of every
government ministry and school, appeared on every denomination of
currency, even on his own brands of vodka and cologne. Everything was
named after him: the country's second-largest city, its airports, a
large meteorite, the month of January. His not-so-little green book of
aphorisms ("Time is a mace. Hit or be hit!"), the Rukhnama, became
required reading for schoolchildren and motorists who sought to renew
their driver's licenses.
Saddam Hussein's reputation for self-indulgence had nothing on
Turkmenbashi. Niyazov's megalomania ranged from the grandiose--at the
time of his death he had just completed the world's largest mosque
(featuring quotes from the Rukhnama, naturally) and had ordered the
construction of a man-made lake in the middle of the Karakum desert--to
obsessive micromanagement. Each Turkmen student's college application
was personally considered by the great man.
Even his commonsense dictates came with a bizarre twist. During the
1990s Turkmenbashi ordered that natural gas, as a national patrimony,
be supplied to Turkmen homes for free. Since most people were too poor
to afford matches, however, it became common practice to leave their
stoves on 24-7. Where foreigners saw hilarity, Turkmen seethed with
resentment; Ashkhabati motorists saved their household garbage so they
could chuck it on the lawn of one of Niyazov's pink pleasure palaces.
A power struggle is underway. Within hours of Turkmenbashi's fatal
heart attack his Constitutionally-mandated successor, Majlis (lower
house of parliament) chairman Ovezgeldy Atayev found himself behind
bars, arrested for an unspecified "criminal investigation." An obscure
deputy prime minister and former dentist, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov,
declared himself acting president and has arranged to have the
Constitution retrofit to validate his rule.
"Many Western analysts," reported The New York Times, "said the country
was unlikely to change and that authoritarian rule would continue under
any of Mr. Niyazov's successors." But Turkmen exiles who lead
opposition parties are itching to fill the vacuum, if not of power, of
charisma, left by Niyazov's demise. Leaders of the nation's five
biggest tribes are jockeying for advantage. And five million Turkmen
who can't afford matches want a piece of the action--and want to get
even with the government thugs who shut down the country's hospitals
and medical clinics.
Berdymukhammedov's regime may keep the lid on the pressure cooker of
Turkmen politics for a short time, but it isn't hard to imagine a
country of former (and present) nomads disintegrating into the chaos of
warlordism as a result of the venting of long-suppressed ethnic and
political rivalries. A Turkmen civil war would quickly turn regional.
Iran and Afghanistan, which share Turkmenistan's southern border, would
side with any faction that could guarantee continued trade, but any
instability would affect the refining of crude from Kazakhstan, a major
world supplier. It would probably end construction of the post-9/11
Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline being built to carry Kazakh oil and Turkmen
gas between Turkmenistan and a Pakistani port on the Indian Ocean.
Everyone is betting that Turkmenbashi's foreign policy of "positive
neutrality" won't last long. Russia has already indicated its intent to
reassert itself in Turkmenistan. Here's where we come in: no American
president, Democrat or Republican, will allow Russia to gain control
over the world's largest energy reserves without a fight. Moreover,
neither Russia nor the U.S. will watch idly as Central Asia implodes
and takes the world economy along for the ride. U.S. troops, currently
based in Uzbekistan, could be sent in to restore order and keep the
Russians out.
Signaling renewed high-level interest in Turkmenistan, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Richard Boucher and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail
Fradkov both attended Turkmenbashi's funeral on Christmas Eve.
Uzbekistan's universally reviled despot Islam Karimov, who got away
with the 2005 massacre of at least 700 civilians at Andijon because of
his country's energy reserves, will almost certainly be an early
casualty of civil strife in Central Asia. A witch's brew of Stalin-era
ethnic gerrymandering and brutal suppression of a nascent Islamist
insurgency, mixed with the collapse of Karimov's Uzbek police state,
could easily take Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan--poor countries barely
recovering from civil conflict and dependant on the urban-based Uzbek
economy--with them. Even Kazakhstan, the most stable of a fragile lot,
is susceptible to an uprising; few Kazakhs have shared in the nation's
oil boom.
Whether or not Turkmenbashi's death directly affects its neighbors,
it's a reminder that Central Asia's autocrats aren't getting younger.
Laugh about the Leader of All Turkmen's excesses now. The storm is
coming.
(Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central
Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel
analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)
COPYRIGHT 2006 TED RALL
DISTRIBUTED BY uclick, LLC/TED RALL
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