Carnegie Moscow Center
The Middle East has long been a regional battlefield of competing interests among the great powers. In the current international environment, however, the United States, Russia, and, to a lesser extent, China share multiple mutual interests in the region.
The recent resignation of President Bakiyev, in the wake of a popular uprising that removed him from power, has given Kyrgyzstan a chance to avoid becoming a failed state.
Russia is already doing much to help the alliance in its struggle against the Taliban insurgency, yet there is a growing feeling in the West that Moscow could be playing a more decisive role in Afghanistan.
The Tulip Revolution did not mark the emergence of democracy in Kyrgyzstan. To the contrary, since 2005, limits on political rights and freedoms and the strengthening of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s family rule have only increased.
Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Sarbaev stressed that many of the problems plaguing Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, such as security and drug trafficking, are in fact regional problems, and that multilateral negotiations and mutual concessions can help find solutions to these problems.
Dmitri Trenin and Marina Ottaway discuss new dynamics and old superpower rivalries between the United States and Russia in the Middle East.
The United States must recognize that former Soviet states are and will continue to be an important focus of Russia’s foreign policy, and should take a broader regional view to its relationships with countries in Russia's sphere of influence.
Alexey Malashenko and Johannes Regenbrecht gave a comparative assessment of the European and Russian strategies in Central Asia.