Last Friday, the Pentagon announced that, by next July, all U.S. troops will leave Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan. The base has served as the most important transit center for U.S. and coalition troops entering and leaving Afghanistan by air, but that role will soon be replaced by a base in Romania. The move comes in response to a July vote by Kyrgyzstan’s parliament to terminate the U.S. lease at Manas effective one year later, on July 11, 2014. It is not the first time Kyrgyzstan has threatened to end the arrangement. Unlike on previous occasions, this time Washington decided not […]

Tainted by scandals and controversies, some bordering on the absurd, Azerbaijan’s presidential election is now over. In a country where the monopolistic ruling party can easily manipulate everything from the voter registries to the list of international election observers, the incumbent’s victory by an 80 percent margin should come as no surprise. After all, elections in autocracies like Azerbaijan mean little in terms of domestic power struggles. But what will President Ilham Aliyev’s third term mean to the outside forces, such as the U.S. government, that can engage his regime on a more level playing field than can his domestic […]