So Maybe Jimmy Carter Was Right?

Almost as if on cue, the Bush Administration made baffling foreign policy statements yesterday regarding Kazakhstan's constitutional reforms. Since the world had the first half of the week to pummel President Carter's statement calling Dubya the "worst in history" in foreign relations, I guess Dubya thought he should fight back by... validating the statement.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Kazakhstan beyond what Borat brought you, let's get friendly. Here's the wiki entry for starters. The Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is basically Stalin Lite. He's more a dictator than a president, and the new reforms would allow him to be president for life. To be fair, the reforms give the parliament more power... on paper, at least. Nazarbayev is the president in a system which allows the president to be nearly authoritarian. Human rights violations are rampant in Kazakhstan, the Soviet-laid infrastructure is crumbling (let's all gasp in unison), and the country is believed to be the home of much of the USSR's "missing" nuclear fuel and weapons that was lost was the country dissolved in 1991. Relations between Russia and Kazakhstan can be tense, not particularly good since Russia uses a site in southern Kazakhstan to launch its rockets, which we also rely heavily on to keep the good ol' International Space Station operational.

Kazakhstan also produces oil, natural gas, and a lot of metals. Let's hear it for development based on extractive industries! Benin, Zambia, Upper Volta/Burkina Faso, how'd that go for you guys? Wait, you're all tapped out and didn't really see any economic gain from the decades of your land being destroyed? Bummer.

What the United States needs to do is look at a case like Kazakhstan and help. In 1991, it had a decent infrastructure, a relatively well-educated populace, and the chance to start a government from scratch. And they did it largely on their own and did it the Russian way, that is, a very small portion of the population is now wildly successful, while your average Kazakh brings home about $500/month. Kazakhstan could have been a great democratic success story for the United States. Instead we let it fester, allowed a dictator to run the show, and are now forced to repay him for the use of his land in the war, and for the fossil fuels he provides us.

It is disgusting to see the current Administration laud these reforms when our troops are fighting a war started so we could depose a dictator. But will Americans ever know this?