Well, now we have bonafide Uzbek Islamists

Now that everybody seems to be agreeing that a distinct group of Islamists have formed up in Korasuv, some have been asking whether or not that changes the dynamics of the situation in Uzbekistan. I really don't think so, since I've acknowledged from the beginning that Islamists in general and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) in particular might well be behind some of the anti-government violence that has taken place in concert with the protests.

The (likely short-lived) group headed up by Bakhtiyor Rakhimov may well be aligned with one of these groups, it may be an independent Salafist organization, or it may be a brand new organization unconnected with the Wahhabism we've all grown to know and love over the past several years.

Either way, what needs to be understood here is that the mere fact that there are Islamists, including possibly some of bin Laden's stormtroopers, on the ground right now in Uzbekistan should in no way give the government a carte blanche to utilize draconian measures. The standard line that Karimov and his allies have tried to sell to the West is that these harsh measures are necessary to prevent the rise of an Islamist state in Uzbekistan. Color me skeptical on this approach because it precisely these same types of tactics (abeit under somewhat different circumstances) that have led Russia to its current situation in Chechnya and as a result individuals like Shamil Basayev and his lieutenants Count Doku Umarov and Abu Hafs al-Urduni now have swarms of not only Chechens but also Ingush, Dagestanis, and other majority Muslim ethnicities joining their ranks and the Chechen conflict, once a struggle for national independence, has now been warped and twisted into a jihad to carve a caliphate in the North Caucasus, probably kind of like the kind that Rakhimov sees himself ruling in Central Asia.

Now assuming that Karimov manages to crush these all of these protests (as seems rather likely to me at this point) successfully, the opposition to his rule is going to survive in some form or another and if the ad-hoc coalition of wealthy businessmen, clan leaders, economic reformists, and pro-democracy protesters collapses, the Islamist groups, most of which have Marxist-esque clandestine structures to begin with, are going to present themselves as the best alternative for anybody who still wants to challenge Karimov. This is pretty much what has happened in Chechnya, near as I can determine. This is one of the reasons why I think that the current Uzbek approach to the situation is unwise.

Do understand, I am about as far from being sympathetic to the likes of Rakhimov and his ilk as they come and if they are indeed a threat to the government (which seems apparent, given that they've taken over a town) or part of the IMU or an HuT faction that's decided now's the time to get political they're going to have to be destroyed as organizations and their members prevented from posing a threat to the rest of us. Sometimes that requires police work, sometimes it requires intelligence, and sometimes it requires military force. The point is that you have to use the right tactics to the right degree in order for them to be effective against the bad guys. Karimov however, doesn't seem so much interested in finding that right response formula as he is in finding a short-term solution to this whole situation that ends with his ass still on the throne in Tashkent and Uzbekistan out of the international headlines. He's definitely been weakened and is running scared as a result and I think that his actions over the last week reflect that.

One other point I want to make for people tracking this would be not to fall into the "conventional wisdom" trap that most of the talk about Islamist militants, the IMU, or HuT being involved in the current situation is all Uzbek (or Russian) propaganda designed to discredit the protesters to the West. It's certainly true that these organizations don't appear to be running the show with respect to the protesters, but to just dismiss their involvement off-hand strikes me as exceedingly wrong-headed. This is a major opportunity for any of Karimov's major enemies and Islamists are nothing if not opportunists. If they weren't involved in the initial violence in Andijon last week, they certainly are now, if for no other reason than that they can't afford to remain idle if by some chance these protests do succeed in bringing down the Uzbek regime. Karimov is certainly a nasty despot and one that I would just as soon be rid of, but that doesn't make all the people gunning (in some cases literally) for his job all angels either.