Afghanistan--Show Me The Way To Go Home!

I dislike very much when something I have thought about threatens to come to pass. Several months ago I wrote about the very tenuous supply line we have for troops and materiel coming into (and out of) Afghanistan.
I repeat again: the country is landlocked. To the west lies Iran—somehow I don’t see them letting our supply or troop delivery planes fly through their airspace any time soon. To the east lies Pakistan—a dubious ally with very good reasons not to let large amounts of American equipment or troops traverse its territory.
These two nations meet south of Afghanistan—blocking access to the sea. To the north lie a series of former Soviet Republics—from west to east, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan—all primarily Muslim, all still in the Russia sphere of influence.
Just north of Tajikistan lies the smallest and poorest of the former Soviet Republics, Kyrgyzstan—which also borders Russia and China. Over half the country is situated 10,000 feet up, which does nothing to add to its wealth .
One way the tiny nation (five million souls) thought to make a little spare cash was to allow the United States to build a major airbase there. The US Transit Center at Manas International Airport just outside of the capital city of Biskek has become a crucial link in our supply chain.
That worked wonderfully as long as the regime that granted us the rights to that base remained in power. Last week that regime came to an end. It seems that the populace became peevish over things like a 200% raise in utility rates—and major corruption by the pro-US government.
Riots broke out and people tossed the old regime out. The apparent victors are calling for closing down the American base.
So far the base reports it is operating normally. The shooting seems to be limited to the capital city for now. Even if the base is shut down, that will not immediately choke us to death in Afghanistan. But it should sound a whole lot of alarm bells in both the Pentagon and Kabul.
What happened in Kyrgyzstan could very well happen in other Muslim states north of Afghanistan and even in Pakistan. We should start—if we haven’t already—thinking very seriously about how we are going to get a whole lot of Americans and NATO types home again if the not-too-unthinkable happens sometime in the future.
Russia has influence there. She is not our friend. She may, for the moment prefer that neighboring Muslim radicals spend their time shooting at Americans rather than Russians—or she may decide to propitiate a few Muslims by inducing her former republics to shut down our northern supply line. I dislike the thought that we are in anyway at the mercy of the former home of the KGB.
Is China our friend? She, too, may not mind us shooting up a few Islamic extremists at the moment. But what if her western Muslim tribesmen become fractious and she starts looking for ways of making them happier?
The world north of Afghanistan could turn upside down at any moment—and we have no real control over the situation. Were I a general in Afghanistan that reality would not make me a happy man.
In Iraq, at least, we have access to the sea. We can come and go—right now—pretty much as we please. In Afghanistan we remain dependent upon a little help from some very dubious friends.
And we think we’ve got troubles NOW. Oh my.