China has formed a club of authoritarian-led countries and Iran wants to join.
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (whew! those are hard to spell) make up the group so far Pakistan and Mongolia as well as India have observer status. Iran is observing this time around as well.
The alliance has celebrated 5 years. Of the members and observers, 4 are nuclear powers and make up 40% of the world's population and about 1/4 of the world's oil reserves.
The group's interests are
1. Joint military exercises
2. Energy cooperation
3. Enhanced trade
4. Intelligence sharing
5. Irritating the US
Rightly or wrongly they have taken it upon themselves to check American influence in
Central Asian region.
They have also spelled out their own axis of evil.
A. Terrorism
B. Separatisim
C. Extremism
Uh...then what is Iran doing there?
The group has already called for the US to remove bases from Central Asia. Uzbekistan wants the one in their country closed and Kyrgyzstan says the US can stay if the US pays more rent - 100 times the current charge!
It is not a bad thing for the US to have such a group to serve as a check and balance
to their (US) policy, I think.
What do you think?
Comment Preview