The New York Times
May 29, 2005 Sunday
Late Edition – Final
There’s Democracy, and There’s an Oil Pipeline
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON
SAMUEL BODMAN, the new secretary of energy, led the United States
delegation to Azerbaijan last week to celebrate a huge moment in
America’s effort to diversify its sources of oil: The opening of a
pipeline that will carry Caspian oil to the West, on a route that
avoids Russia and Iran.
Mr. Bodman delivered a message from President Bush: ”As Azerbaijan
deepens its democratic and market economic reforms, this pipeline can
help generate balanced economic growth, and provide a foundation for
a prosperous and just society that advances the cause of freedom.”
Just a few days earlier, the Azerbaijani police beat pro-democracy
demonstrators with truncheons when opposition parties, yelling ”free
elections,” defied the government’s ban on protests against
President Ilham Aliyev. Mr. Aliyev is one of President Bush’s allies
in the war on terror, even though he won a highly suspect election to
succeed his father, a former Soviet strongman.
Every week, the White House seems to find itself in a balancing act
between promoting democracy, on one hand, and supporting friends in
combustible but strategically important parts of the world. In recent
days, the issue has been how hard to press for an international
inquiry into the massacre of civilians in Uzbekistan this month; or
how to press Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, into facing real
challengers in his country’s coming election; or how to challenge the
resurgence of central control in Russia and China while gaining their
cooperation to stop nuclear proliferation.
It all has shades of the cold war. From 1946 until the fall of the
Berlin Wall, American presidents embraced — sometimes unhappily,
sometimes enthusiastically — dictators from Latin America to the
Philippines to South Korea in the name of stopping Communism.
Now, even brutal leaders have discovered that if they cooperate in
the war on terror Washington is unlikely to squeeze them too hard, or
at least too publicly, on other issues. Pakistan has led in this
strategy. When President Pervez Musharraf decided late last year not
to relinquish his military posts, as he had once promised to do, no
one from the White House denounced him.
The president and his aides have never said it would be easy to
reconcile Mr. Bush’s clarion call for democratic change worldwide
with reality on the ground. But at least one past member of the
administration says they have made a basic mistake.
”Look, I was part of the incubation of this policy,” said Richard
N. Haass, who was head of policy planning in the State Department
from 2001 to 2003, referring to the decision to make democracy a
major theme of the Bush presidency. ”But I don’t think you can make
it the controlling issue. The administration has set itself up for
inconsistency.” In fact, Mr. Bush has started to talk about the need
for patience as Americans wait for democracy to take hold elsewhere.
His wife, Laura, took up the theme this month on a trip to the Middle
East. Asked about the difficulties of mounting any real challenge to
President Mubarak in Egypt, she said, ”To act like you can just go
from here to there overnight is naive.” Full democracy, she said, is
”not easy and we know that it’s, in many cases, not even possible.”
Mrs. Bush went further in that comment than most White House policy
makers will, at least in public.
But Stephen R. Sestanovich, who served as the Clinton
administration’s specialist on the former Soviet republics in the
1990’s, said it is becoming clear that not all revolutions are what
Americans would like them to be.
”Georgia and Ukraine were good examples of the model working as we
think it should: Popular outrage, the right result,” he said. ”But
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan show you something different, the prospect
of sheer chaos.” In the first, President Askar Akayev fled, leaving
competing groups to fight each other. In the second, Mr. Sestanovich
said, President Islam Karimov is dealing with ”the complete lack of
popular confidence” after his troops shot hundreds of civilians
after an armed uprising that he said was the work of Islamic
terrorists — his favorite choice of culprits.
Russia distanced itself from Mr. Karimov, and he seemed unlikely to
win another invitation to the White House, which he visited after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he may not need the American welcome.
Last week in Beijing, the Chinese gave him a 21-gun salute and praise
for his steadfastness against ”the three forces of extremism,
terrorism and separatism.” By the time Mr. Karimov headed home, he
had a deal for a $600 million joint venture in oil.
That, in short, is the new Great Game Americans find themselves
playing in Central Asia: Competing with the Chinese for oil supplies;
with the Russians for influence in their backyard; and all the while
talking about spreading democracy.
Paul Goble, an expert on the former Soviet Union who used to work for
the State Department, summarized the conundrum in the region this
way: ”As soon as you get rid of the ex-Communist thugs, you will get
Muslim governments there.”
That is one reason Mr. Bush takes every chance to highlight the
success stories, even at the risk of offending Russia.
Mr. Bush’s aides describe him as deeply engaged in the strategy, down
to choosing exactly where he would go on his five-nation trip earlier
this month. On that trip, the president spoke from the square in
Tbilisi where Georgians staged demonstrations that ousted a leader in
2003. The warning he was sending to Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about
centralizing power in the Kremlin was clear, if never explicitly
stated.
But Mr. Goble remembers how thinly democracy was consolidated in the
region after the Berlin Wall fell, despite American wishes. ”Our
tendency is to declare victory and move on,” he said. ”It doesn’t
work that way.”
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GRAPHIC: Photo: Cleanup Time — Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, left,
and leaders from Central Asia and the Caucasus after leaving
handprints during the opening in Azerbaijan of a new pipeline. (Photo
by European Pressphoto Agency)Chart/Map: ”U.S. Interests in a
Treacherous Neighborhood”GEORGIAPRESIDENT: Mikheil Saakashvili, who
was elected after nonviolent protests ousted Georgia’s first
president in 2003.U.S. INTEREST: The orderly flow of oil through the
Caucasus pipeline, and access to Azerbaijan.POLITICAL MINEFIELD:
Azerbaijani and Armenian minorities in three autonomous regions
promote secessionist movements, and President Saakashvili has lately
taken a harder nationalist line. During a visit by President Bush
this month, a grenade was found near a podium he was standing
on.KAZAKHSTANPRESIDENT: Nursultan Nazarbayev, in power since
1991.U.S. INTEREST: With oil and gas reserves and good relationships
with Western oil companies, Kazakhstan is by far Central Asia’s
largest country, although its population is thinly
dispersed.POLITICAL MINEFIELD: Some experts worry that corruption and
sycophancy in the Nazarbayev government could undermine this
strategically located country, where Russia and China are vying for
influence. President Nazarbayev may respond to turmoil in Uzbekistan
by becoming increasingly authoritarian.AZERBAIJANPRESIDENT: Ilham
Aliyev, who succeeded his father, a former K.G.B. general, in
2003.U.S. INTEREST: A new pipeline linking the Caspian Sea to the
Mediterranean to carry oil to the West through Azerbaijan, Georgia
and TurkeyPOLITICAL MINEFIELD Stability in the Caucasus could
collapse if war resumes between Azerbaijan and Armenia
chaos could invite Iranian interference. Azerbaijan is largely Shiite
Muslim
Armenia is largely Orthodox Christian, like Georgia. Ilham Aliyev is
considered more likely to keep the peace than the nationalistic
opposition, which claims to be more democratic.TURKMENISTANPRESIDENT:
Saparmurat Niyazov, in power since 1991.U.S. INTEREST: Gas reserves,
proximity to Afghanistan.POLITICAL MINEFIELD: President Niyazov is
aging, ill and, said Paul Goble, an expert on former Soviet
republics, a ”fragile totalitarian” whose rule could end suddenly.
He survived an assassination attempt in 2002. The State Department
says he governs in a ”Soviet-era authoritarian style”
since 2002, he has tightened his grip and acted bizarrely, declaring
diseases illegal and closing hospitals, said Martha Brill Olcott, a
senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.UZBEKISTANPRESIDENT: Islam Karimov, in power since 1991.U.S.
INTEREST: A military base was important during the Afghan war in 2001
has some oil and gas. There is evidence that the U.S. has sent terror
suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogationPOLITICAL
MINEFIELD: The government, which blames Islamic terrorists for all
unrest, killed from 167 to 500 people, depending on the source, after
armed protesters freed prisoners this month. Experts say Uzbekistan
could collapse, risking civil war, which could spread to its
neighbors, and disrupt energy exports. Russia has cooled to President
Karimov, but he was welcomed warmly last week in
China.KYRGYZSTANPRESIDENT: Askar Akayev, in power since 1991, fled
the country and resigned after protests in April. New elections are
scheduled for July 10.U.S. INTEREST: A military base, useful for
operations in nearby Afghanistan.POLITICAL MINEFIELD: The outlook for
democracy and stability are unclear. The shape of the new government
will likely be decided more by political deal-making than by the
voters, says Dr. Olcott. ”There’s a job for everybody,” she said.
Meanwhile, Russia and China compete for influence.(Sources by Martha
Brill Olcott, Carnegie Endowment
Paul Goble, former State Department analyst.)Map of Asia and the
Middle East highlighting the aforementioned countries.