Ariel Cohen comments on the Tashkent embassy
bombings:
"A militant Islamic takeover of Uzbekistan may provide radicals with a state base larger and militarily and technologically more sophisticated than Afghanistan. Moreover, a demise of a secular Uzbekistan may have tumultuous consequences for the whole of Central Asia. If Islamists overrun Uzbekistan, weak Central Asian states, such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and even the totalitarian Turkmenistan, may follow. An Uzbekistan controlled by a radical Islamist regime, emergence of a Central Asian Califate, and waning U.S. influence in the region, will leave human rights and individual freedoms worse off than they are now."