KYRGYSTAN: Tension is high in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek following a failed coup last weekend which has left the United States facing a growing dilemma over how to respond.
Washington may talk the talk of democracy for Iraq and the Lebanon, but it has stayed silent over one tyrant's overthrow in Kyrgystan and another's repression in neighbouring Uzbekistan.
On the face of it, the choices could hardly be clearer. Having ousted its former president, Askar Akayev, after rigged elections last March, Kyrgystan's new provisional government has done the right thing by organising elections for July 10th.
When 2,000 Akayev supporters muscled their way into the government headquarters last Friday, police used tear gas to winkle them out.
The building is now protected not just by police but by a ring of ordinary people, their pro-democracy fervour announced by the wearing of pink armbands.
The acting president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has promised to defend the building - "with a gun in my hands if necessary" if there are further attacks - and begged the US to help organise the July 10th polls. A keener ally could not be imagined.
Meanwhile the president of neighbouring Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, is still refusing to let foreign investigators look into the massacre of several hundred civilians last month.
The US has air bases in both countries. An obvious move would be to close the one in Uzbekistan and widen the runways in Kyrgystan, sending a strong signal about support for democracy.
Instead, Washington is paralysed, worried that fundamentalists may seize power if free elections are held.
Other anxieties are also in play in the region. Even if fundamentalists are kept at bay, chaos caused by fragmenting opposition groups could bring its own woes.
Central Asia sits on top of huge oil reserves and China, Russia and the United States are all pushing for a slice. Organised crime is also on the rise, as the region has become the main route for opium trafficked out of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the Pentagon last week blocked calls for a Nato-Russia summit to issue a demand for investigations into the Uzbek massacre. While Congress hosted Ukraine's pro-democracy leader, Victor Yushchenko, after his country's orange revolution, last week's visit to Washington by Kyrgyz foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva was decidedly low-key.
In the long term, the choice is stark. Regimes that are rotten will surely fall. The question for America is: whose side does it want to be on when this happens?