The war on Iraq

The closer and the more real the war on Iraq was becoming, the more urgent the issue of a new US led coalition formation was becoming as well. In this situation, the problem of "making friends", has gradually developed from a tactical issue to a strategical one. For Russia, France, Germany or China the debates on Iraq with USA and their allies, apart from economic reasons, to a big extent had to do with the necessity to counteract to the American hegemony, as well as with a wish to make their role in the international politics more significant.

The so-called small countries, not having an opportunity to seriously influence the course of events, nevertheless, are involved into the Iraq crisis solution process indirectly, and, choosing one of two ways of Baghdad disarmament, volens nolens show their priorities in the foreign policy. From the US point of view, the attitude of various countries to the Iraq problem is "a proof test", and many States pass this exam quite succesfully today.

According to the US State department, published last Tuesday, their position on Iraq is openly shared by 30 countries, while "the governments of approximately 15 countries agreed to support Washington silently". In his yesterday speech to the nation G.Bush spoke already about 35 States supporting the USA in the "military operation against Iraq". There are six obvious US supporters among the post-Soviet Republics: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia, Lethuania, Uzbakistan and Estonia.

If Azerbaijan until recently tried to use roundabout statements about its "supporting US efforts, direceted at the elimination of mass destruction weapons and the quickest possible solution of the crisis on the basis of the UN charter", the other five abovementioned countries could not permit any serious hesitations to themselves.

Thus, Georgian administration last year addressed to the United States a proposal to "help by all means", in the case that a military conflict occurs in Iraq. And this February president E.Shevardnaze offered to Washington to allocate the American military aircraft on the military airport of Vasiani, moreover, the Georgian side considers an establishment of a permanent American military base there after the war to be important, of course in exchange for moral and financial aid of the Americans, who will have to push Russians out of the region. Yesterday David Tevzaze, minister of defence of Georgia, again declared that Georgia was ready to collaborate with the USA in its action against Iraq in any form, if it is necessary.

It's well-known that Uzbekistan is viewed by Washington as a key country in the process of strategic re-orientation of Central Asian countries towards USA. And there are all bases for such perception. Firstly, Uzbekistan in 1999 left the Collective Security Treaty of CIS and in the beginning of October, 2001, it concluded an agreement with USA, as per which the American troops were provided with significant rights and authorities during the anti-terrorist operations carried out by USA from Uzbek bases. USA are going to rent one of them - Khanabad, for 25 years (around 3 thousand American staff and 50-60 fighters). The amount of annual payment will be $270-300 million. Apart from this money, the Bush administration offered for a financial aid in the amount of several billion dollars.

It is noteworthy that Andrew Coat, director of Pew Research Center and head of a global issues research project entitled Global Attitudes Project, not so long ago, commenting on the results of the interview, carried out on the subject of the attitude towards USA in the world said that the "dissatisfaction with the United States has grown in the last two years". According to Coat, in this tendency of growing anti-Americanism there are two exceptions - "a new friend and ally Uzbekistan", which lately "has become one of the main recipients of American aid". It is not surprising that the official Tashkent this month repeatedly stated that "Uzbekistan supports USA in its wish to disarm Iraq". In response to the loyalty shown by Uzbekistan, on Tuesday, the 18th G.Bush sent a letter to Karimov with an expression of gratitude for its contribution into the struggle against terrorism and the support of the States policy concerning Hussein, as well as a promise not to forget "those who stood with us".

As for the three ex-Soviet Baltic Republics, their wish to join EU and NATO makes them excessively zealous in their support of USA and "new European" initiatives on the Iraq problem. Following the January letter from eight national leaders: those of Spain, Great Britain, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Czechia to other European countries with an appeal to "support USA in its struggle against Iraq", a statement appeared, in which the States of "Vilnius ten", in a hope to receive the Congress help in the process of the candidate countries admission into NATO, showed a quite active and positive support of the US policy on Iraq. A risk of losing a possibility to join EU, to which the leaders of France and Germany hinted lately (according to J.Chirac, "they have lost a wonderful possibility to keep silent") did not diminish the zeal of these new Europeans, Baltic nations included. Moreover, perhaps due to a generally nervous situation in Europe, the administrations of Baltic countries in the last weeks allowed themselves a few unwary remarks concerning the leaders of France, Germany and Russia. In particular, prime minister of Estonia S.Callas, in an article in the newspaper "Postimeas", dedicated to the Iraqi problem, said that Estonian support of Washington on this issue is also due to a necessity to takre into consideration a possibility of an "aggression against Estonia on the part of Russia".

A.Lukashenko, president of Belarus, stands on a diametrically opposite position. The specifics of the country relations with Iraq and the United States, as well as its strong interest in the CST membership, of course, id not help to maintain real possibilities for manoeuvring. As A.Lukashenko observed repeatedly: "the preparations of the United States for a large scale military operation against Iraq without a resolution of the UN Security Council - is a direct challenge to the world community".

Ukranian administration despite its statements on its intention to send an Ukranian chemical batallion to one of the Gulf countries i nthe case of a war on Iraq, has still not given a clear response to the question on the support of USA. Anyway, Ukraine is not on the list of the thirty obvious States supporters. It should be observed, however, that yesterday president L.Kuchma said that he was deeply concerned with the beginning of military operation in Iraq and he even stressed that "Ukraine always was against the armed way of resoving world conflicts".

Kishinev rarely comments on the Iraqi subject, although the president V.Voronin remarked that "the ways of Iraqi problem settlement must be found within the UN Security Council". However, its membership in the GUUAM, where three member countries out of five aready spoke in support of the USA, as well as a pro-American behaviour of Romania that is so close to it in all respects (there they think that "the war on Iraq - is a favourable chance not only for the image, but also for the future of Romania", which is preparing to join NATO), can undoubtedly influence the Moldova position in the nearest future.

The attitude of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia to the war on Iraq is defined by their wish to maintain the growing US aid and not to lose the support of Russia, which, by the way, recently tried to investigate the degree of reliability of its CST partners, proposing on its last meeting in Moscow a discussion on the Iraq problem as the main subject. However, to these countries an assertion can be applied that due to subjective and objective circumstances, they are forced to agree on cooperation with everybody, who can help them with "finance, arms, moral support", while they often find themselves in "complicated and contradictory situations".

The neutral Turkmenistan, that kept silence for so long about the American military preparations, recently, during a short period of time, made two diametrically opposite statements. First, at a meeting with J.H.Scheffer, acting chairman of OSCE, foreign minister of Holland, S.Niyazov observed that the country supported the US position on the Iraqi problem: "Turkmenistan follows the line chosen by USA", and then, already at the negotiations with the Iranian president M.Khatami in Teheran: "We are against the war on Iraq".

The position of Kazakhstani authorities on Iraq in the last few weeks was, as usual, vague and even ambiguous, although not so contradictory. The statement of the MFA of the Republic, issued on Tuesday, says that "Kazakhstan expresses deep regret and concern about the lack of unity in the UN Security Council on the Iraqi problem". Observing that the Republic "remains on principled positions of the support of UN and is in favour of the solution of key international problems only within this organisation", the ministry makes quite an ambiguous statement, stressing that the efforts of the international community on a (peaceful) disarmament of Iraq "proved to be vain, also due to the destructive position of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein". However, further in the document the MFA hurries to remind that "Kazakhstan remains faithful to the basic principles of strategic partnership with USA and hopes for that a further development of equal and mutually beneficial relations with this State will continue".

Today, of course, there are various points of view on the efficiency of Central Asian States multi-vector policy. Michael Denisson, researcher on Kazkahstan and Central Asia from Leeds University, in his interview, published in the "Newsweek" yet last summer observed: "Such policy is characteristic of the countries, wishing to maintain the equilibrium and at the same time to continue receiving the aid. But in some cases the multi-vector policy can become deadening and not to bring positive results. For instance, in the West because of political games several countries become outsiders and relations with them are not welcome. Kazakhstan is everybody's friend. As a result it can happen that you will cease to be trusted".

The justness of these words can be judged when some time passes, meanwhile Kazakhstani administration takes urgent national security measures. As Kazakh Information Agency reports, "in relation with the events that took place lately around Iraq", yesterday a meeting of the top government, president administration, power structures heads, under the chairmanship of N.Nazarbaev took place in Astana. At the meeting N.Nazarbaev gave a number of orders, "related with the military, economic and humanitarian aspects of the situation".