How is Kyrgyz Upheaval Going to Affect the Manas Base

Given the ongoing unrest, what happens to Manas?

Kyrgyzstan is as strange as its name sounds; for one thing, it's the only nation in the world to host military bases for both the United States and Russia. And while it sought - and eventually won - a nearly fourfold rent increase from the Pentagon last year for continued American use of Manas air base outside the capital, Bishkek, there was another condition: that the U.S. military stop calling it a base. The U.S. agreed, and so since last summer the busy hub has been officially known as the "Transit Center at Manas" - a Greyhound bus terminal for central Asia and the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
While U.S. flights into and out of the, uh, transit center were initially suspended following the violent ousting of President Kurmanbak Bakiyev on Wednesday, limited operations into Afghanistan have resumed, Pentagon officials said Thursday. Acting Prime Minister Roza Otunbayeva has said U.S. operations there can continue for now, although some of her fellow opposition leaders want the U.S. lease terminated, or at least shortened.
If those who toppled the Kyrgyzstan government on Wednesday do decide to evict the U.S. military in the days to come, the current surge of U.S. troops into Afghanistan will be slowed, though it won't be stopped. Those who have taken power, many of them friendly to Moscow, didn't like how the U.S. dealt with Bakiyev during lease renewal negotiations last spring, believing that the Obama Administration had legitimized an autocratic regime. Still, the country appreciated the increased rent - from $17 million annually to $63 million - as well as a U.S. pledge to spend a further $67 million improving the airport, which also serves as Kyrgyzstan's key international gateway.
Russia's influence is extensive in the former Soviet republic, and Moscow has been irritated by the U.S. presence in what it calls its "near abroad" - former Soviet territories - since the U.S. began operations at Manas in 2001. While in Moscow in February 2009, perhaps spurred by the offer of a $2 billion loan from Russia, Bakiyev publicly complained that the U.S. wasn't paying enough for its use of the base. That same month, the Kyrgyz parliament voted to end the U.S. presence, although the lease ultimately was renewed with the hefty rent increase.

We'll try to get Guardian to tell his war stories about Kyrgyzstan...

By: Brant