Journalists have had their hands full this week with reports of Iran's fake time machine, not to mention the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that shook the country's south. But somehow, in all the excitement, an Iranian proposal to annex Azerbaijan went largely unnoticed. 

On Tuesday, Iran's Fars news agency reported that Azerbaijani-speaking lawmakers in Iran had introduced a bill to re-annex their neighbor to the north. Iran lost Azerbaijan in 1828 -- "The most frustrating chapter in the history class!" Fars laments -- when it was forced to sign the Turkmenchay treaty, ceding the territory to Russia. The legislators propose revisiting the terms of the treaty, which, according to Fars, means "the 17 cities and regions that Iran had lost to the Russians would be given back to Iran after a century."

For its part, Azerbaijan has told Iran to "bring it" -- diplomatically speaking. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Siyavush Novruzov of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party has declared that revisiting the treaty would result not in Azerbaijan being annexed to Iran, but rather in Tehran ceding its northwestern territory to Azerbaijan.

While all this may sound like the makings of an international showdown in a strategically sensitive region, here's the comforting part: in the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both sides have repeatedly brandished the treaty as an empty threat. Take a look at this January 1992 edition of one Kentucky daily:

Screenshot of the Kentucky New Era

Or a December 2011 headline from Azer News that reads, "MP wants to 'annex Azeri territory to Iran.'"

On the other side of the border, Azerbaijan has threatened more than once to reclaim the region in Iran known as "Southern Azerbaijan." And as we wrote in February 2012, minority lawmakers in Baku have even provocatively suggested changing the country's name to "Northern Azerbaijan," implying ownership over the Iranian territory to the south.  

Writing in Foreign Affairs in January, Iran expert Alex Vatanka explained why, despite significant cultural and linguistic overlap, the two countries remain tense neighbors. After securing independence in 1991, Azerbaijan failed to become the close Shiite ally that Tehran wanted, he notes. And since 2003, Vatanka adds, "Baku has grown both considerably richer -- thanks to revenues from energy exports -- and noticeably bolder in its foreign policy."

This boldness -- which includes the purchase of weapons and technology from Israel in exchange for granting the country a foothold on the Iranian border -- has driven an increasingly substantial wedge between Azerbaijan and Iran. In other words, don't be surprised if we see this headline crop up again ... and again and again.

China's People's Daily may have taken some heat this week for publishing what the Shanghaiist described as a "leering" slide show of a "beautiful" journalist, but some news outlets in Kazakhstan have been one-upping the Communist Party daily when it comes to misogyny. This week, in honor of International Women's Day on March 8, the Kazakh website Vox Populi is hosting a Miss Military Kazakhstan contest -- encouraging readers to vote not for models but for "beauties" from various military and law-enforcement units who "wear shoulder straps" and guard the country. 

On Wednesday, Kazakhstan's Tengri News reported on the competition as if it were a horse race:

Judging by the current results of voting the National Guard of Kazakhstan has the most beautiful officers. Three girls from the National Guard of Kazakhstan have taken the leading positions in the rating: Sergeant of the National Guard Bibigul Sauytova from Astana is in the first place, Junior Sergeant of the National Guard Saltant Bayzhumanova from Astana is in the second place and Sergeant of the National Guard Natalya Fokina is in the third place.

It's not clear how many times this particular contest has been held, but Tengri News reports that authorities in the country do host an annual Lady of Kazakhstan Police contest, with the winner appearing on the cover of a police magazine.

Which brings us back to International Women's Day. According to the website for the century-old celebration, the "tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts." In keeping with that tradition, Vox Populi will award Miss Military Kazakhstan with a digital camera. And in a separate development, Tengri News is reporting that police in the country will give female drivers flowers and forgive them traffic violations in honor of the holiday. So, there's that.

Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't choose his foreign visits lightly. On May 31, Putin makes his first trip abroad since being inaugurated for a third term as president on May 7, to neighboring Belarus. The visit is highly symbolic of Russia's desire to be the leader in the post-Soviet space, as well as Putin's continued support for the authoritarian president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko (also known as "Europe's Last Dictator"). Afterwards, Putin will head to Germany and France, Russia's major trading partners in the EU. After the European visits, Putin will fly to speak with Uzbek ruler Islam Karimov in Tashkent, to Beijing, and finally to Astana, Kazakhstan, to meet with long-time ruler Nursultan Kazarbayev; countries central to Putin's vision of a Eurasian Union.

Earlier in the month, Putin suddenly declined to attend the G8 Summit in Camp David, under pretext that he was too busy forming a new Cabinet of Ministers, sending instead Prime Minister Medvedev. The move was widely seen as a snub to President Obama, as Putin avoided a meeting with the president, and sidestepped making the U.S. his first foreign visit. A few days later, Obama announced he would not be able to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Vladivostok this September, because it conflicted with the Democratic Party convention.

Putin has now also taken the opportunity to snub the UK, by announcing he will not attend the opening of the London 2012 Olympics, even though the 2014 Winter Olympics will be held on Russian territory in Sochi. Likely, Medvedev will once again be sent in his stead. Russian-British relations have been tense since the 2006 poisoning of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. Moreover the West has been pressuring Russian officials over the 2009 death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky while he was detained in prison. Putin's foreign trip destinations are by no means accidental.

Meanwhile, not everyone in Belarus is enthusiastic for Putin's visit to their country. (More here in Russian.)

Judging from past experiences, Turkmenistan's autocratic president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, doesn't seem to be a lover of the animal kingdom. There was the time he reportedly fired one of his security officers for negligence leading to an "assassination attempt" -- by a cat. And once he fired 30 workers from the main state TV channel for allowing a cockroach to interrupt the evening news.

Apparently one animal does get the Turkmen seal of approval: horses. So much so that he issued a presidential decree on Monday ordering that national beauty contests for the country's thoroughbred horses should be held every April, coinciding with a celebration of the "annual horse days."

According to Reuters:

The best horses of the breed, distinguished by shimmering coats, long delicate necks and legs and popularly revered as "the wings of the Turkmen," will be chosen "to promote the glory of the heavenly racehorse worldwide," the decree said.

Special awards will be given to craftsmen for the best carpet featuring the horse, the best "holiday attire" for the breed, the best portrait and even sculpture.

Turkmenistan's 5 million people celebrate the Akhal Teke horse as a national emblem -- horses are often bestowed as gifts to foreign leaders and eating horse meat is especially taboo. The late leader Saparmurat Niyazov opened a $20 million leisure center for horses in 2004, complete with swimming pool, air-conditioning, and a medical center. Berdimuhamedov, an avid equestrian, wrote a 2008 book about Turkmen horse breeds.

Let's just hope a horse isn't involved in any other national mishaps -- there are only so many government workers to fire.

In a move aimed at punishing potentially naughty children citizens, the government of Tajikistan is trying to get its students studying abroad at religious schools to return home. Fearing a politically and religiously coupled radicalization against its authority, the Tajik state stepped up the conflict by blocking websites supposedly critical of the government and armed forces. AFP reports that the blockage:

comes after Tajik Defence Minister General Sherali Khairullayev accused local media at the start of the month of supporting the Islamist militants.

He said that journalists' coverage had been one-sided and focused solely on alleged shortcomings of the armed forces. 'They do not ask who has carried out a[n] act of terror, on whose orders,' he complained.

The broad backlash follows a series of attacks carried out inside this Central Asian state by what the government suspects are radicalized Muslim elements. In recent weeks, scores of government soldiers have died, some in unclear circumstances, but clearly linked to fighting operations in the particularly volatile Rasht region of Tajikistan.

Apparently, the state does not want to slide back into a repeat of civil war which ravished the country during the 90's and pitted the current government, backed by Russia, against a more diverse opposition of Muslim fighters and non-religiously affiliated resistance, at least partly based in Afghanistan at the time.

While there have been reforms in the country allowing political opposition, there are still problems with the political will and administration in carrying them out; thus the recent chaos reflects what seems like a still non-placated opposition which stems, in part, from the authoritarian and non-inclusive tendencies of the current government.  

For the poorest of the post-Soviet Central Asian republics, the prospect of armed conflict is a tremendous expense -- both economically and politically -- that Tajikistan truly cannot afford and would be a setback to any nascent post-war progress that may have been acheived.  

Maybe it was all the excitement with the Russian spies last week, but somehow we missed one of the more intriguing things to grace the Wall Street Journal's letters page in a while: A full-throated defense of Hamid Karzai's brother, Mahmood Karzai, written by Gerald Posner. Posner, you may recall, was an investigative reporter for the Daily Beast until February, when he resigned after being caught plagiarizing from the Miami Herald and other news sources. In the letter -- which concerns an unflattering recent story about Karzai ferrying cash out of Afghanistan -- Posner identifies himself as "Gerald Posner, Attorney at Law," and refers to Karzai as "my client." Huh?

FP spoke this afternoon with Posner (above left), who says he isn't just representing Mahmood Karzai (above right), but also the other two Afghan presidential siblings, Hamid's younger half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai and older brother Qayum Karzai. It's an odd twist on the disgraced plagiarist-fabulist rehabilitation story, which often involves a legal career but not usually in the service of a beleaguered Central Asian ruling family. "They are really proud of the reputations that they have earned," Posner says of the Karzais, "and sort of in shock that they are viewed with such disdain in a country that is their ally in this process."

Read on

This is interesting:

Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday that "Bakiyev and his family are in Minsk under the protection of our state and me personally." His presence, however, could exacerbate Belarus' tensions with both the West and neighboring Russia, as well as with Kyrgyzstan itself. ...

Lukashenko's move to give refuge to Bakiyev appeared to be an open challenge to Russia, which he accuses of trying to absorb or crush his country. Many observers suggest that Russia supported or even aided Bakiyev's ouster, angered by his reneging on a promise last year to evict the U.S. base.

With Moscow's role in the lead-up to the Kyrgyz uprising becoming more clear, it will be interesting to see how other authoritarian governments in the region respond. Lukashenko's government has resisted Russian pressure to recognize the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With presidential elections scheduled for early next year, could we see Russia starting to put pressue on its onetime ally?

In the wake of a rally that turned violent this morning, deposed Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has left the country: 

Gunfire had been heard earlier as Mr Bakiyev spoke in the southern city of Osh; an opposition rally was going on nearby.

Mr Bakiyev was quickly bundled into his car and driven back to Jalalabad where a plane was seen taking off from the nearby airport.

The plane later landed in the southern Kazakh city of Taraz, a Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman said.

Kazakhstan currently holds the presidency of the OSCE.

The opposition takeover of Kyrgyzstan's government now appears to be complete. Given the violence and chaos of the initial uprising, Roza Otunbayeva's interim government seems to have consolidated power remarkably quickly, and it never really seemed like Bakiyev's supporters had a chance. Once the dust settles, the tick-tock account of how all this transpired should be pretty fascinating. 

Eurasianet reports on the latest from the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek where at least 21 people have been killed. Stores are being looted, the office of the state broadcaster has been raided and automatic weapons fire has been exchanged between rioters and security forces. There are reports of black smoke rising from the parliament building. 

The whereabouts of President Kurmanbak Bakiyev are still unknown but rumors are flying: 

The whereabouts of President Bakiyev as of the evening of April 7 could not be verified. Some rumors circulating in the city suggested that he had taken refuge at the US air base at Manas, outside of Bishkek. Other reports claimed that he had fled the country. Opposition leaders, including Omurbek Tekebayev and Almazbek Atambayev, were reportedly released after being taken into custody on April 6.

Earlier in the day, Bakiyev declared a state of emergency following initial clashes between police and protesters outside the government headquarters. During the afternoon, demonstrators drove two trucks into the White House gates. They caught fire as Ministry of Interior forces stationed within the compound shot at the vehicles with what appeared to be live ammunition, a EurasiaNet.org correspondent witnessed.

Bakiyev himself took power in the 2005 "Tulip Revolution," overthrowing authoritarian President Askar Ayakev, but his tenure has been marked by increasing authoritarianism and corruption. 

If Bakiyev were actually taking refuge at Manas, it would be ironic. The presidents numerous threats to shut down the facility have been a perpetual annoyance to the Pentagon, which relies on Manas to bring goods into Afghanistan. 

The newest Wired magazine has a great, terrifying article on Ug99, a fungus that is imperiling wheat crops, auguring possible famines and rising food prices. The story focuses on the damage Ug99 has already caused from southern Africa north to Iran, the USDA's race to genetically engineer resistant plants, and the fungus' possible implications for the United States, where wheat is the third-biggest cash crop.

But I wondered about Ug99's possible implications for Afghanistan -- on the fungus' frontline, and where wheat is the chief legal cash crop. On one hand, this is clearly terrible news. About 80 percent of Afghans are involved in farming; millions of livelihoods depend on wheat, particularly in the north and west. Plus, big wheat hauls recently started cutting into poppy production. On the other hand, by virtue of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the country receives considerable food and seed assistance. The USDA already has an infrastructure in place to help Afghan farmers use higher-yield seeds; NATO and USAID already have an extensive food-aid infrastructure -- that might help mitigate Ug99's effects, if the fungus makes it into Afghanistan this growing season. But here's to hoping it doesn't.

On his New Yorker blog, George Packer takes aim at the "devastatingly unremarkable" bloviation of Beltway journos. He cites Washington Post columnist (and "dean" of the Washington press corps) David Broder's analysis of a recent Sarah Palin speech as "[showing] off a public figure at the top of her game -- a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself." He also offers up the New York Times' Adam Nagourney's coverage of a recent Republican leadership conference: "Here in Honolulu, the strains within the party over conservative principles versus political pragmatism played out in a sharp and public way."

These two characterizations from two top writers for the United States' two leading papers, Packer argues, are but purple guff -- in the words of Michael Kelly, examples of how the "idea of image" is "faith in Washington." The journalists follow the same, strange, well-worn routine. They take the mundane comings and goings of major political figures, interpret them according to prevailing partisan winds, and write them up in the overheated, undercooked language of a harlequin novel. The result is airy nonsense that fervently insists on its trenchancy. 

Packer further demonstrates the absurdity of this journalistic convention by satirically recasting the Palin passage about Afghan President Hamid Karzai: "Speaking at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr. Karzai showed himself to be at the top of his game. He skillfully co-opted his Pashtun base while making a powerful appeal to the technocrats."

The point is that Washington coverage of major political figures is not just bizarre stylistically, but dead substantively. To discuss for hundreds of words how Palin is at the top of her game is to spend hundreds of words not discussing her actual relevance to the fractured conservative scene. Foreign correspondence on major political figures needs to be more explanatory than illlustrative -- and it would be better if coverage of Washington were more like the clear-eyed, clean-written analysis of Kabul.

Yet, Washington is -- we all must agree -- as complicated and tribal and strange a town as any. Contrary to Packer, I see it as increasingly covered as if it were, with the conventional-wisdom reporting shifting away from personality-focused atmospherics towards structure- and process-focused explanation.

It is a matter of necessity. It once used to be that you understood the presidency by understanding the president, at least according to the corps. Clinton was a man of appetite and a bleeding heart -- ergo the klieg-lit campaigns, the Lewinsky affair, the Brady Bill, the low-income tax cut. Then, the press corps put George W. Bush on the couch. The stubborn Texan-by-way-of-Connecticut was always trying to prove himself to his father, the correspondents said, hence the invasion of Iraq and the wartime tax cut.

But you'd look like an idiot trying to explain Obama's Washington by explaining (the rather Vulcan) Obama. To be sure, the press corps has limned his psychology -- most brilliantly in the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza's profile of Obama's sharp-elbowed navigation of the Chicago machine and most obviously in the Obama-as-poker-player stories. Both Broder and Nagourney have filed the profiley fluff Packer derides. But both Broder and Nagourney have also written granular pieces on the strange conventions and rules of the White House and Hill. 

It seems the deans of Washington journalism are increasingly treating their home city the way Packer treats Kabul -- and it is a very good thing indeed.

Today marks the start of a grueling set of four congressional hearings for U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal:

• Tuesday 9:30 a.m., House Armed Services Committee (HASC), Chaired by Rep. Ike Skelton
• Tuesday 1:30 p.m., Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Chaired by Sen. Carl Levin
• Wednesday 10 a.m., Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), Chaired by Sen. John Kerry
• Thursday 9:30 a.m., House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFA), Chaired by Rep. Howard Berman

We'll be live-blogging and live-tweeting throughout, and watch for thorough coverage on the AfPak Channel as well.

So, what to look for? 

Well, above all: details about the Obama administration's planned escalation of the conflict, including where the soldiers are headed, information about strategic goals, information about the civilian surge and population-centric strategy, questions about the importance of al Qaeda and the Taliban, and questions about relations with the Karzai government and Pakistan.

Spencer Ackerman at the Windy and Noah Shachtman at Danger Room have some good suggested questions and further details.

Also: dissent. Eikenberry and McChrystal aren't particularly fond of one another right now. The ambassador reportedly strongly questioned the strategy the latter helped create, arguing that sending more troops without bolstering the Afghan government might foster dependency and undercut the state; McChrystal, in contrast, wanted to send 40,000, rather than 30,000, troops. One of the unstated goals of the hearings will be to show a united face. But members of congress, as well as the press, will be looking for any cracks.

Today, U.S. President Barack Obama is announcing his plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. This is, he says, the endgame; the White House press secretary has reportedly indicated that Obama plans to end major military operations within three years. But, in the meantime, Congress will have to figure out how to pay for all of those soldiers, who will cost an estimated $1 million each to deploy.

To that end, Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, last month introduced the Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010. It makes the war in Afghanistan pay-go, with a progressive tax (that would amount to an additional one percent of income tax for average-income Americans, and more for bigger earners) gauged to prior-year war spending. If we spend $100 billion on Afghanistan one year, the tax raises $100 billion the next; if we spend $1, it raises $1.

It's an obviously sensible idea. To date, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are the only ones the United States has funded without raising taxes -- mostly by running multibillion-dollar deficits and borrowing 40 percent of the wars' costs from other countries, who will have to be paid back, plus interest, in the future. (George W. Bush famously cut taxes during wartime.)

But Congressional sources, The Cable reported, have said that the bill will never reach the House floor, let alone Obama's desk. It's galling not just because the bill makes some obvious sense. It's shocking because it was a very moderate measure that would have covered just a sliver of the cost of war to the United States. The Share the Sacrifice Act sought to pay for only the yearly cost of Afghanistan war operations: not the aggregate cost of Afghanistan, or the interest the United States needs to pay its creditors, or the aggregate cost of both wars, or down-the-road costs (like healthcare and social security for added troops or the cost of replacing and repairing equipment).

Through 2009, the United States has spent $944 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan, with more than 70 percent of funds going to the former war. For 2010, the requested budget is $139 billion -- with $63 billion apportioned for Afghanistan. The Obey bill would have raised just that $63 billion with a tax levied in 2011 (and the option for presidential deferment if the economy hadn't recovered). That's 6 percent of aggregate spending over the past nine years.

In a smart post about the subject, Matt Yglesias writes, "The reaction to David Obey's 'war tax' idea is telling -- nobody seems to really think there are national interests at stake that are critical enough to be worth paying slightly higher taxes for. But if a war's not worth paying for, how can it be worth fighting? And if we don't pay for the war in the FY 2010 budget, we still need to pay back the loans."

It's worth remembering that Obey was attempting to fund just 6 percent of the war with income raised from taxes.

There's nothing more frustrating than reading an article which purports to answer a question that it really dodges. Take, for example, "How to Measure the War," by inveterate Afghanistan and Iraq indexers Jason Campbell, Jeremy Shapiro, and Michael O'Hanlon. One would expect to finish the piece with a better understanding of the metrics that we will use to judge our progress in Afghanistan than after reading, say, Taro Gomi's Everyone Poops. That would be incorrect. 

Instead, the piece meanders inoffensively through thirteen pages, informing the reader that, yes, metrics are important in a counterinsurgency campaign. Yes, they can be misused and suffer from a lack of concrete data. And then there's this: "Unfortunately...metrics will not be up to the job of diagnosing clear and incontrovertible proof of progress or lack thereof in Afghanistan."

That's disturbing news, especially coming from the people who have followed the numbers in Iraq closer than anyone not in a uniform. It's also, thankfully, not particularly convincing. The authors argue that, because the primary measure of success in Afghanistan will be the effectiveness of the Afghan government, this presents a set of metrics which are hard to measure. Well, here are a few metrics to gauge the capability of the government off the top of my head: I would be interested in knowing in what parts of the country the government can collect taxes; how many students regularly attend government-run schools; and where the government can provide regular services, from functioning courts to trash pickup.

Those are just the basics. You can read the Obama administration's metrics for measuring progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan here. I'm sure there are more complicated metrics for a government's capabilities. So how about it, Passport readers? What do you think are the important factors to measure in Afghanistan to determine if the US war effort is worth the cost?