An Oil-Rich Test for Bush

Fair Elections in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan Could Energize a Region

In the past two weeks the Bush administration has launched a concerted attempt to translate its pro-democracy rhetoric into action in two little-known Eurasian countries whose importance is about to soar. Within six weeks, it could pull off a political feat that would electrify a region, and energize the president’s freedom doctrine. Or it could find itself with yet another messy and possibly dangerous foreign policy dilemma.

The test comes in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, two former republics of the Soviet Union that hold all of the early 21st century’s big cards: huge unexploited oil riches; a majority Muslim population; location between Russia, China, Iran and Afghanistan. Thanks to large investments by Western oil companies, and in Azerbaijan’s case a newly completed pipeline, both are about to become very, very rich. In a few years their names will be as familiar to Western energy consumers as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Both are also ruled by autocrats who would like to follow the Persian Gulf states’ example and forge a strategic partnership with the United States. And both of those strongmen have scheduled elections: Azerbaijan for parliament on Nov. 6 and Kazakhstan for president on Dec. 4. The Bush administration could have ignored those events; both countries, after all, have been staging fraudulent votes for years, just like the friendly autocrats of the Middle East.

Instead, President Bush chose to engage. Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan got a letter from the president and a visit from a senior State Department official last week. Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan was visited by Condoleezza Rice the week before. The messages to them were almost exactly the same: Hold a free and fair election, and you can “elevate our countries’ relations to a new strategic level.” That could mean a lot — not just state visits to Washington for Nazarbayev and Aliyev (who covets one), but also closer military ties, help in solving problems (such as an unresolved war between Azerbaijan and Armenia), and status as primary U.S. partners in the Caucasus and Central Asia. It could also send a powerful message to several neighbors — such as Uzbekistan, whose strongman just broke off his “strategic partnership” with the Bush administration rather than go along with demands for liberalization.

Washington Post