Not surprisingly, not long after assuming the chairmanship of the OSCE, Kazakhstan wheeled out a proposal to have an OSCE summit -- a controversial idea that is fraught with ramifications that go beyond the simple good idea of having heads of states talk more to each other.
There hasn't been an OSCE summit for years. The last one was in Ankara in 1999, 10 years ago. And for good reason - the Russians want a summit to be all about creating a new European Security Charter, and turning the OSCE document based on a kind of gentlemen's agreement about the Eurasian continent into a binding charter with the status of legal personhood. The West is not interested in renegotiating Helsinki in this fashion -- well, at least parts of the West. Some in Europe are likely willing to go along with this notion because some tool is needed to revive the whole OSCE process and make it relevant, and for some new Ost Politickers, this will be it.
My own rather naive thought is in fact that the same kind of risky gamble that launched the process back in 1975 is needed again -- danging the carrot of something the Russians want (the security charter, the legal status) with a stick of something the West should be able to get (binding human rights treaties and bodies to examine Copenhagen compliance, real resolution of "frozen conflicts," obligations that Russian forces will not be deployed to other CIS or CSTO members -- I'm just thinking out loud). My notion of this bold idea, however, is conditioned on the kind of muscular diplomacy for human rights and democracy for which the Reagan Administration was noted in its day -- and I'm not sure we'd get that now.
The Obama Administration isn't likely to want to get into the enormously challenging and perilous process of handing the Russians a big security charter grab and ramp up the willingness to really step up to the plate on the human rights "baskets" -- not when official policy these days is not to tell other countries what to do and go softly-softly on "internal affairs".
The Kazakhs have sharpened the proposal by saying it's all about Afghanistan -- at a time when they can get NATO countries to focus on the very real experience of the war spilling over into Central Asia, for example with returning fighters from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan -- and when they've gotten the regimes of Central Asia to roll over and accept rail and air transit of freight to help the war effort.
Maybe we should ask Afghanistan to join OSCE.
The down side of trying to get Afghanistan ensnarled in the already complex and dilatory processes of OSCE (there is actually already some engagement, on issues like border guard training, etc.) is that the UN is already engaged, and has a UN Centre for Preventive Diplomacy in Ashgabat full tilt on OSCE-type activities -- and of course NATO and the EU are already involved. The overlay of yet another acronym is not always a value-add.
Answer the poll on my blog below as to whether you think this is a good idea.
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