The importance of being Stan

Vancouver, Nov 27 - -
Since the war the war on terrorism started the world has been getting a crash course on terror, on Islam, on Special Forces, and as strange as it sounds, a bunch of countries named ‘Stan’. It’s especially hard to believe that these nations are now on the radar when three months ago Stan was just another dope that you knew.

The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan recounted that, “It was said by a late night comedian that since Americans can't keep all the "istans" straight--Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan--the best plan was to invade them all, turn them into one country and call it JenniferAnistan, as that way we'd both remember it and like it.”

While the action in this war has been in Afghanistan (there’s one) thus far, there are six other “Stans” that surround it. In one way or another all six of them depend on the stability of Afghanistan.

1. Pakistan. The Stan getting most of the attention so far has been this one. On the one hand Pakistan has gone through big changes. Their military dictator has struck a Faustian deal that has them supporting the war on terror in return for foreign aid and debt relief. Not to mention a tacit recognition that Pakistan is a rightful nuclear power. On the other hand President Musharraf has placed himself in a delicate position vis-à-vis the nations 130 million citizens, of which 97 percent are Muslim. It is a dangerous game considering the nations flirtations with terrorism of their own in the Kashmir region. Final analysis: He may be a bastard, but he is our bastard, for now anyways, but there is always phase II.

2. Uzbekistan. This one is easy. Uzbekistan has been a supporter of the Northern Alliance throughout the 1990’s even though it too has Taleban sympathetic minorities. That said it has two goals. First it wants to increase trade for its 22 million landlocked citizens. And second it really wants to build a railway from Uzbekistan, through Afghanistan, and into Pakistan to get products to market via the Indian Ocean. (That is the maxim that three Stans are better than one.) Final analysis: They hitched their wagon to the right side long ago.

3. Kazakhstan. One word: OIL. Think of this as Uzbekistan with enough oil to make its 15 million strong population very, very rich. If this war brings stability to the region, then that oil can be pumped through pipelines into either Iran or Afghanistan and Pakistan without traveling through the Russian pipeline. President Nazarbayev was very quick to see that joining the coalition was a way to bring stability. Final analysis: They have oil and they don’t hate us-with friends like this who needs Saudi Arabia?

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