* Israel downplays S-300 sale to Iran Israeli officials downplayed reports in the Russian media Wednesday that Moscow signed a deal two years ago to sell S-300 air defense missiles to Iran.

* Global crisis ‘to strike by 2030’ Growing world population will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030.

* IDF to U.S.: Israel Closing In on Taking Military Aim at Iran IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi gave United States officials fresh intelligence information on an Iranian nuclear facility during his “working visit” this week.

* Assad: Olmert okayed Golan deal before Gaza op In what appears to be a concerted effort to improve Syria’s image abroad, Syrian President Bashar Assad granted his third newspaper interview in 10 days.

* U.S. may widen strikes in Pakistan President Barack Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan far beyond the unruly tribal areas to strike at a different center of Taliban power in Baluchistan.

* Palestinian unity talks break down Talks between rival Hamas and Fatah factions in Cairo ended on Thursday without a deal on a national unity government.

* 4,000-year-old ‘Abraham’s Gate’ reopens The nearly 4,000 year-old “Abraham’s Gate” at Tel Dan in northern Israel has been reopened to the public after a decade-long restoration project.

* Cairo: US, Europe should deal with any gov’t Palestinians agree on Egypt has been urging Europe and the US to deal with whatever government is agreed on by the rival Palestinian factions negotiating in Cairo.

* EU leaders to discuss response to economic crisis EU leaders are meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss the best ways to get out of the economic crisis.

* China ‘to step up naval patrols’ China plans to step up naval patrols in disputed waters in the South China Sea to protect its interests.

By: Ira Iosebashvili – The Moscow Times

The Kremlin published its priorities Monday for an upcoming meeting of the G20, calling for the creation of a supranational reserve currency to be issued by international institutions as part of a reform of the global financial system.

The International Monetary Fund should investigate the possible creation of a new reserve currency, widening the list of reserve currencies or using its already existing Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, as a “superreserve currency accepted by the whole of the international community,” the Kremlin said in a statement issued on its web site.

The SDR is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement the existing official reserves of member countries.

The Kremlin has persistently criticized the dollar’s status as the dominant global reserve currency and has lowered its own dollar holdings in the last few years. Both President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have repeatedly called for the ruble to be used as a regional reserve currency, although the idea has received little support outside of Russia.

Analysts said the new Kremlin proposal would elicit little excitement among the G20 members.

“This is all in the realm of fantasy,” said Sergei Perminov, chief strategist at Rye, Man and Gore. “There was a situation that resembled what they are talking about. It was called the gold standard, and it ended very badly.

“Alternatives to the dollar are still hard to find,” he said.

The Kremlin’s call for a common currency is not the first in recent days. Speaking at an economic conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, last week, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed a global currency called the “acmetal” — a conflation of the words “acme” and “capital.”

He also suggested that the Eurasian Economic Community, a loose group of five former Soviet republics including Kazakhstan and Russia, adopt a single noncash currency — the yevraz — to insulate itself from the global economic crisis.

The suggestions received a lukewarm response from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday.

Nazarbayev’s proposal did, however, garner support from at least one prominent source — Columbia University professor Robert Mundell, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1999 for his role in creating the euro.

Speaking at the same conference with Nazarbayev, he said the idea had “great promise.”

The Kremlin document also called for national banks and international financial institutions to diversify their foreign currency reserves. It said the global financial system should be restructured to prevent future crises and proposed holding an international conference after the G20 summit to adopt conventions on a new global financial structure.

The Group of 20 industrialized and developing countries will meet in London on April 2.

* Bin Laden calls for infiltration of Jordan as way to ‘liberate al-Aksa’ Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s latest audio message has targeted Jordan for the first time, calling on his supporters to infiltrate the country in order to “liberate al-Aksa.”

* Russia announces rearmament plan Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said Moscow will begin a comprehensive military rearmament from 2011.

* ‘Israel could attack Iran with missiles’ A new report has assessed that Israel could use ballistic missiles to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, rather than air power.

* At G20, Kremlin to Pitch New Currency The Kremlin published its priorities Monday for an upcoming meeting of the G20, calling for the creation of a supranational reserve currency.

* Lebanon establishes embassy in Syria A Lebanese parliamentarian praised the opening of his county’s first-ever embassy in Syria.

* Smallest known North American dinosaur found Canadian researchers say they have discovered the smallest known North American dinosaur.

* Pope visits Africa, reaffirms ban on condoms Pope Benedict XVI refused Wednesday to soften the Vatican’s ban on condom use as he arrived in Africa for his first visit to the continent as pope.

* U.S. blames Sudan’s president for Darfur ‘catastrophe’ The U.S. State Department threw aside diplomatic language Tuesday, attacking Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

* Medvedev Pushes Plan to Remake Russian Military President Dmitry Medvedev vowed Tuesday to press ahead with an ambitious overhaul of Russia’s armed forces.

* Top UN official accuses US of demonizing Iran The outspoken U.N. General Assembly president on Tuesday accused the United States of demonizing Iran’s president.

* Scholar Claims Dead Sea Scrolls ‘Authors’ Never Existed Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D.

* IDF chief: Strike on Iran a concrete option IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, who is on an official visit to the United States, told his American colleagues Monday that the Iranian threat could still be handled via sanctions.

* Solana: Don’t drop 2-state solution The European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana warned on Monday that the bloc may reevaluate its ties with Israel.

* Egypt talks to Europe, US on Palestinian unity Egypt has dispatched two of its top officials to convince the Americans and the Europeans to accept a weaker commitment by the militant Hamas group to peace with Israel.

* Downturn ‘risks Africa conflict’ African leaders have warned that parts of the continent could be plunged back into conflict if they are not helped to recover from the global downturn.

* Pakistan turns onto a new and uncertain path It was a signal moment in Pakistan’s political development: A huge demonstration forced the restoration of a dismissed chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

* Drones are weapons of choice in fighting Qaeda A missile fired by an American drone killed at least four people late Sunday at the house of a militant commander in northwest Pakistan.

* China likely to be stronger after crisis The global economic downturn, and efforts to reverse it, will probably make China an even stronger economic competitor than it was before the crisis.

* Abbas: Hamas-Fatah talks doomed to fail The Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian factions appear to be on the brink of collapse.

* Netanyahu asks Peres to weigh in on coalition talks Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Shimon Peres Monday and asked him to facilitate the formation of a national unity government which would include the Labor and Kadima parties.

By: – Col. Bob Maginnis

Pakistan faces the confluence of political, legal, security and economic crises that threaten to unravel the nuclear-armed Islamic country. Unless these crises abate, a coup could be on the horizon. Even worse, the country might collapse into the arms of Islamic radicals.

Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he is “extremely concerned” by the crises in Pakistan. But he doubts that army will step in to restore stability. Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani is “committed to a civilian government” and doesn’t want to take over as his predecessor did in 1999, Mullen explained.

Conditions today are similar to those in 1999 when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s popularity plunged amid an economic slump and a law and order crisis. Sharif stripped the judiciary of its power after the chief judge tried to bring corruption charges against him. What triggered the coup, however, was the military’s humiliation after Sharif ordered it to withdraw from Kashmir despite the fact that victory over India was at hand.

Today, Pakistan faces a growing political crisis which threatens that government. President Asif Ali Zardari is trading regional sovereignty for promises of peace and abusing the levers of government for political survival.

Zardari is expected to sign an agreement which surrenders legal control of the Swat Valley region to Taliban militias. That agreement replaces secular rule of law for the introduction of Qur’anic law in exchange for promises that local militia will rein-in Taliban violence. This approach has become a trend in Pakistan’s Northwest Territories and appears to be spreading into Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab.

The president is also charged with the political excesses of his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. Last month, the Zardari appointed Supreme Court denied opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister, from holding office and Zardari even threatened to charge Sharif with sedition. Then the president dismissed the provincial legislature in Punjab, the stronghold of Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N.

Last week, Zardari banned all demonstrations for two weeks in anticipation of Sharif’s supporters staging a protest at the country’s parliament on March 16. The protesters want Zardari to restore Sharif’s government in Punjab and to reinstate judges ousted for political reasons by the Musharraf regime in November 2008.

So far, hundreds of Sharif’s supporters who protested were arrested and on Sunday Sharif was detained at his home in Lahore. Now, in anticipation of Monday’s protest in Islamabad, authorities have blocked the roads three miles out from the center of the city with metal shipping containers and the government put the army on notice that troops might be needed to protect “sensitive areas.” Zardari has also imposed a crackdown on some Pakistani newspapers, a move akin to that of a military government.

Second, Pakistan’s legal crisis is linked to the political drama which is being manipulated by Sharif for personal gain. He has taken up the cause of anti-government lawyers who seek the reinstatement of former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Sharif’s support for that cause only came after Zardari’s Supreme Court banned him and his brother Shahbaz from elected office.

Zardari has already restored most of the judges fired by Musharraf. Speculation is that should Chaudhry be reinstated he would move to limit Zardari’s power or reopen corruption cases against him that date back to his previous term in government.

Third, Pakistan’s security crisis threatens stability. Security is tenuous because Pakistan is seething with a volatile mix of violent Islamic groups.

Pakistan’s violence problems are mostly self-inflicted. That country harnessed Islamic extremism as a tactical and strategic tool by supporting groups that attack India over the disputed Kashmir and it supported al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, however, President Bush recruited Pakistan away from the extremists to America’s war on terror by providing billions of dollars in aid.

American aid has not totally weaned Islamabad from using terrorism as a tool. But what was once a useful geopolitical tool has now turned on its master. Pakistan suffers increasing “blowback” from Islamic violence which threatens the government.

Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan is a virtual hornet’s nest of extremists. Pakistani Taliban supported by al Qaeda control much of the region and is now making inroads into mainland Pakistan. This is evidenced in part by the government’s sovereignty-for-peace deals with the Taliban.

Pakistani extremists have spread their violence elsewhere. The November 26, 2008, Mumbai, India terror attack is linked to Pakistani extremists. That attack, which took 179 lives, revived hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbors that have fought three wars since 1947.

On March 3rd, a similar terror attack took place in Lahore, Pakistan. Twelve gunmen attacked a convoy carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team. Like the militants that attacked Mumbai, the Lahore attackers used sophisticated weapons and according to the police chief “They appeared to be well-trained terrorists.”

Finally, Pakistan’s economic crisis threatens its wobbly government. Prices of food and fuel are up, inflation hovers at 20 percent and economic growth doesn’t keep up with the country’s rapidly growing population of 173 million which creates an eternal recession, Pakistani economist Mohsin Khan warns.

Last fall, the International Republican Institute (IRI), a U.S.-funded pro-democracy group, found 73% of 3,500 Pakistanis questioned said their personal finances were worse than the previous year and almost as many (59%) expect things to get worse. Staples like wheat have more than doubled in cost over the past year while wages declined.
Shuja Nawaz, a director with the Washington-based Atlantic Council, claims Pakistan is living on borrowed time. It needs an immediate infusion of $4 to $5 billion “And if you don’t do that then everything else really falls by the wayside.”

Pakistan’s poor economic conditions bolster the extremists’ leverage. Nawaz said, “The Taliban know only that when the government is unable to deliver services, and when there is unhappiness among the general population because food prices have gone up tremendously, gasoline is not available, electricity shortages are rampant, that it is much easier to convince the people that the Taliban have the solution rather than the government.”

The confluence of these crises — political, legal, security, economic — explains Zardari’s high disapproval rate. He won election a year ago but today the IRI poll shows 63% of Pakistanis disapprove of his performance. That’s bad news for Pakistan’s democracy and a country that has been governed by the army half of its 61 years.

Some Pakistanis might grudgingly welcome back army rule. “A military government at least is organized,” says Mian Muhammad Shabbir, who owns a factory in Lahore. But for now it doesn’t appear the military is ready to step in.

The army has taken over the reins of government five times but senior officers have repeatedly insisted that General Kayani is committed to letting civilian rule take its course. But “We can’t have chaos. Someone is going to have to bring control,” warned an officer who serves in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.

The U.S. has a vested interest in a stable Pakistan which might mean the military takes over once again. That’s not a strategy for the long-term but better than seeing the reins of power with Islamabad’s 60 nuclear warheads fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.

For now, the Obama administration should help Pakistan resolve its four crises and that will take nonmilitary financial assistance, political compromise, security assistance and diplomatic pressure to keep the neighbors like India at bay.

* The jury’s out on the future of Europe The financial crisis is likely to create fundamental changes in the EU.

* EU warns Netanyahu on hawkish government The EU urged PM-designate Netanyahu to craft a government that embraces the long-standing goal of an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.

* Iran should stay out of Arab disputes Iran’s top diplomat made a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia attempting to improve relations amid rising tensions between the Islamic Republic and the Arab world.

* G20 summit critical for economy The upcoming G20 meeting is critical if the world wishes to avoid the economic turbulence seen in the 1930s.

* Israelis think Gaza op ended too early Two-thirds of Israelis believe that Operation Cast Lead against Hamas terrorists in Gaza finished too early, according to a new poll.

* Khatami reportedly withdraws presidential bid Former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami announced his withdrawal from the country’s presidential elections.

* Likud and Israel Beiteinu sign deal Likud signed its first coalition deal with Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu.

* Iraqis more upbeat about future Violence and insecurity are no longer the main concern of most Iraqis, for the first time since the 2003 US-led invasion.

* Sudan to expel all aid groups Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir says he wants all international aid groups out of the country within a year.

* Egypt concerned about future Israeli govt Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit voiced concern for Middle East peace hopes after an ultra-nationalist party signed up to be part of Israel’s new government.

* Obama: I’ll forge new ties with Muslims In phone conversations with the leaders of Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines on Friday, US President Barack Obama discussed his commitment to forging a new relationship with Islamic countries.

* Likud-Kadima coalition talks resumed The secret talks between the Likud and Kadima parties have been resumed recently in a bid to form a joint coalition.

* Bin Laden: Gaza offensive a ‘holocaust’ Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called Israel’s operation in Gaza a “holocaust”.

* Obama aide: Talk to Hamas Economic Recovery Adviser Paul A. Volcker and nine former senior American officials have urged President Barack Obama to engage in dialogue with Hamas leaders.

* ‘Ahmadinejad to attend Sharm summit’ There will soon be a “real positive change” in ties between Arab countries and Iran.

* Rabbis after pope meeting: Crisis over “The Jewish people, who were chosen as the elected people, communicate to the whole human family knowledge of and fidelity to the one, unique and true God.”

* Palestinian unity negotiations near collapse Hamas and Fatah negotiators said on Thursday they are having difficulty reaching an agreement over the makeup and political program of a Palestinian unity government.

* Nasrallah vows to never recognize Israel In a recorded speech aired Friday evening in Beirut in honor of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly rejected a preliminary US condition for talks.

* ANALYSIS / Fatah-Hamas unity would pose major dilemma for Israel If the understandings reached on Thursday in Cairo between Fatah and Hamas remain valid even after the representatives from both sides return home, they are likely to expedite the release of Gilad Shalit.

* ‘Outside interference’ in Lisbon treaty campaign, Irish minister says Irish Europe minister Dick Roche has said there was “serious external interference” in the run-up to the country’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

By: Maya Spitzer – The Jerusalem Post

The Islamic states circulated a new resolution at the current session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that would criminalize defamation of Islam as a human rights violation and encourage the imposition of Shari’a.

According to the nonbinding governmental resolution, titled “Combating Defamation of Religions,” anything deemed insulting to Islamic sensitivities would be banned as a “serious affront to human dignity” and a blatant violation of religious freedom.

The resolution would attempt to influence “local, national, regional and international levels” to incorporate such guarantees of this perceived freedom in their “legal and constitutional systems.”

“It is a covert package coordinated by Pakistan against the West,” said Leon Saltiel, director of communications at the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, on Thursday. “They think there is too much liberty and freedom of expression in the Western world, which therefore defames religion.”

This resolution is part of the ongoing campaign of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a powerful bloc of 56 states at the UN, which began to introduce annual resolutions in 1999 to ban the “defamation of Islam.”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said during an address to Radio Free Europe in December that “Islamic states pursued the diplomatic battle with a vengeance” because of the post-9/11 war on terror and the controversy ignited by the cartoon of their prophet published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.

“The resolutions pose a major threat to the premises and principles of international human rights law and harm Muslims as much as non-Muslims. International law already protects victims of religious discrimination,” for instance via the 1984 Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, declared Neuer.

The resolutions fail to address human rights violations of Muslim countries, notably Iran’s persecution of Baha’is, Saudi Arabia’s banning of all religious practice aside from Islam, and the persecution of Christian communities in Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq.

The latest resolution is “not really trying to protect individuals from harm,” but rather attempting “to shield a set of beliefs from question or debate and to ban any discussion of Islam that may challenge state orthodoxies or offend Islamic sensibilities,” Neuer said.

Wednesday’s resolution would immediately target moderate Muslims from the countries sponsoring the resolution with “state-sanctioned blasphemy laws,” UN Watch said in a statement. It would also target the Western media, which the resolution accuses of “deliberate stereotyping of religions, their adherents and sacred persons.”

Although similar resolutions have been passed for the past couple of years, this resolution is of particular importance because “the ideas of the resolution will be incorporated into Durban texts,” said Saltiel, referring to the UN Durban Review Conference on Racism to be held in Geneva next month.

“If the resolution is passed enough times, it becomes an international legal norm,” Saltiel said.

“Tragically, given that Islamic states completely dominate the Human Rights Council, with the support of non-democratic members like Russia, China and Cuba, adoption of the regressive resolution is a foregone conclusion,” UN Watch said.

The “Combating Defamation of Religions” resolution will be voted on March 26-27, giving organizations in Geneva such as UN Watch two weeks to mobilize international opposition to it, Saltiel said.

In December, Neuer declared that “the most dire threat is coming from Geneva, where an Algerian-chaired subcommittee of the UN’s upcoming Durban II racism conference has this week been seeking to amend international human rights treaty law to ban ‘defamation of religion,’ especially Islam.

“Eleanor Roosevelt, whose universal declaration we celebrate this month on its 60th anniversary, must be turning in her grave,” he said.

Since December, Algeria has drafted an international protocol on that theme, due to be brought before the UN General Assembly in September.

By: Oliver Guitta – The Jerusalem Post

Pakistan recently gave in to the pressure of Islamist militants. Indeed to buy off peace, Pakistani authorities allowed the imposition of Shari’a (Islamic law) in the Swat Valley.

How long the cease-fire will last is anyone’s guess. But in any case, Pakistan has allowed a precedent that could extend to other provinces; in fact the Swat Valley is only about 160 kilometers from Islamabad, the capital. But Shari’a is not making inroads only in Pakistan – it is creeping into the West.

One area particularly touched by this phenomenon is the judicial system in Europe. Two recent cases in Italy and France are particularly troublesome.

In Italy, three members of a Brescia-based Maghrebi family (father, mother and eldest son) were accused of beating and sequestering their daughter/sister Fatima because she had wanted to live a “Western” life.

In the first trial, the three were sentenced for sequestration and abuse. The court acknowledged that the teenager had been “brutally beaten up” for having “dated” a non-Muslim and, in general, for “living a life not conforming with the culture” of her family. But on appeal, the family was acquitted because the court deemed that the young woman had been beaten for “her own good.”

The Bologna public prosecutor’s office then disputed the acquittal of the three accused parties, but the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation dismissed it and ruled in favor of the charged parties.

Interestingly, two Italian political leaders on opposite sides of the political spectrum – Isabella Bertolini, vice president of the MPs of the right-wing party Forza Italia, and Barbara Pollastrini, a post-communist former minister – condemned the Supreme Court decision, calling it “one of the darkest pages in the history of the law in our country.” Bertolini was upset that the court had “allied itself with radical Islam.” Pollastrini is now pushing for parliament to pass a law condemning violence against women. “Now more than ever, it is urgent to defend the rights of a large number of immigrant women victims of an intolerable patriarchal culture,” she says.

Muslim women were quick to denounce the Supreme Court’s decision. Among them was Souad Sbai, president of the Organization of Moroccan Women in Italy. She said, “It is a shame, this verdict is worthy of an Arab country where the Shari’a is vigorously enforced. In the name of multiculturalism and respect for traditions, the judges apply two kinds of rules: one for the Italians and one for the immigrants. A Catholic father who had acted this way would have been severely sentenced.”

According to her organization, at least nine Muslim women have recently been killed in Italy by close relatives. The number of young girls forced to wear the hijab “as early as eight or 12” is on the rise, as is the number of female teenagers fleeing home, and “lots of them are looking to flee to France.” But France might not be the panacea either. Indeed, in one widely publicized case last June, a French judge ruled in favor of a Muslim man who wanted the annulment of his marriage because his wife had turned out not to be a virgin. What this decision amounted to was an endorsement of the repudiation concept.

This decision triggered a huge outcry from politicians and various organizations. In November, a French appeals court overturned the decision. Interestingly, a large majority of French Muslims, about 80 percent, are very secular and totally reject any kind of Shari’a law being implemented in France the “homeland” of human rights.

But the United Kingdom is a different story; indeed, close to 40% of young Muslims there are in favor of Shari’a law being implemented. The idea also seems to be making headway among non-Muslims. Last year, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said the legal recognition of Muslim religious courts “seems unavoidable.” He added that the UK had to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens did not relate to the British legal system.

Williams argued that adopting parts of Shari’a law would help maintain social cohesion. For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Shari’a court.

But contrary to what Williams advanced, Sadiq Khan, a British Muslim MP, said Shari’a courts would discourage Muslims from developing links with other cultural and ethnic groups. He feared also that women would be “abused” by such courts, which may give unequal bargaining power to the sexes.

In Switzerland, Christian Giordano, an anthropology professor at Fribourg University, echoed Williams by writing that a special jurisdiction for Muslims could be envisioned there. He added that including elements of Islamic law could allow the multiculturalism issue to be better managed.

Other occurrences of Shari’a law taking precedence over the law of the country have been reported. For example, in Denmark, some imams have allegedly sentenced delinquent Muslims, hence bypassing the country’s judicial system.

So Islamists, much to the detriment of the majority of Muslims in Europe, seem to be making headway in pushing Shari’a law into the continent’s judicial systems.

By: Mark N. Katz – Middle East Times

U.S./NATO supply lines through Pakistan to Afghanistan have come under increasing attack. Russia has responded to this by allowing the United States to increase the amount of ‘non-lethal’ supplies they ship through Russia to Central Asia and Afghanistan. This, of course, helps the American-led effort in Afghanistan.

POWER POLITICS — The great powers each need to acknowledge that the others have legitimate interests in Central Asia, and thus none should be excluded from it. The picture shows workers at the Tengiz-Black Sea oil pipeline which runs from the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. (ITAR-TASS Photo via Newscom)

But fearing the growth of U.S. influence in Central Asia, Moscow has for years been urging Kyrgyzstan to expel American forces from the Manas air base, which the United States has been using in support of operations in Afghanistan. The Kyrgyz government has now ordered American forces to leave Manas – a move that hurts the American-led effort in Afghanistan.

Moscow’s pursuit of policies that simultaneously help and hurt the U.S./NATO campaign in Afghanistan is a reminder that the geopolitics of Central Asia is highly complex. Petroleum and pipeline routes, the potential for Islamic extremism, and the possibility of democratization are each issues that contribute to this complexity.

What is especially interesting to observe is that the geopolitics of these three issues is different.

America, Russia, and China are competing against one another with regard to petroleum and pipeline routes from Central Asia. The Europeans have been divided over whether to support pipeline routes from Central Asia through Russia or a route under the Caspian and across the southern Caucasus that avoids Russia that the U.S. favors.

The recent Russian-Ukrainian gas crisis has made the Europeans more wary of relying on Russia, and hence more in favor of a non-Russian route. The Europeans, though, are far more willing to contemplate a pipeline route via Iran than the United States is (at present anyway). In short: Cooperation among the four great powers is at a minimum with regard to petroleum and pipeline routes from Central Asia.

By contrast, America, Russia, China, and Europe are all united in opposing the rise of Islamic extremism in Central Asia. In that Russia and China border Central Asia, the rise of Islamic extremism there would have extremely negative consequences for both of them.

With supply routes through Pakistan to Afghanistan increasingly under attack, the rise of Islamic extremism in Central Asia has only worsened the considerable difficulties America and its European allies already face in their struggle against similar forces in Afghanistan. And of course, the rise of Islamic extremism in Central Asia would greatly limit or even eliminate the possibility of exploiting the region’s petroleum reserves.

With regard to the possibility of democratization in Central Asia: Russia and China oppose this, while America and Europe either support it or would welcome its occurrence. Russia and China prefer the existing authoritarian regimes in Central Asia because they see them as more willing to ally and cooperate with Moscow and Beijing than democratic governments there would. America and Europe, for their part, anticipate that democratic Central Asian governments would align themselves more with them.

The great powers, then, have both competing interests and common interests in Central Asia. Because much is at stake for them all, they would be well advised not to pursue their competing interests so aggressively that they harm their common interests. Each needs to acknowledge that the others have legitimate interests in the region, and thus none should be excluded from it.

Central Asian petroleum can be exported to several markets by different routes. Just as the authoritarian governments that Russia and China prefer have worked with America and Europe, democratic governments (should they ever arise in the region) would undoubtedly seek to work with Russia and China as well as the West. Beijing would probably realize and adjust to this quickly — even if Moscow did not.

Whether authoritarian or democratic, however, Central Asia is likely to be vulnerable to Islamic extremism. Russia’s acting to deprive America of access to military facilities in Central Asia which support U.S./NATO operations in Afghanistan only increases this vulnerability. Moscow’s success in this will not benefit Russia, but the Islamic extremists instead.