After the war last August and in response to it Iranian President Ahmadinejad affirmed his country's intention of joining the SCO and added, "The thing is that every organization has its own functions. We have our own expectations related to the SCO. The world does not consist only of NATO and the United States." [35]
Addressing the Georgia-Russia war also, the head of Russian Center of Political Information Alexei Mukhin took the above point to the next level: "If we are talking about SCO's move from an economic organization to a military one, then this has already happened....All the member states were willing to respond to the strengthening of NATO." [36]
The director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ center for SCO and regional problems, Anatoly Bolyatko, added:
"[T]he recent conflict in the Caucasus underscored the need for a multipolar world order. If NATO and even the UN are unable to settle this conflict, the SCO could well become a viable platform for resolving such problems....
"The SCO should eventually start playing a new role both in and outside the Caucasus. What we see now is a real crisis of the idea of a unipolar world now that the US and its NATO allies pretend they are unable to get to the core of what’s been happening in the Caucasus.
"I believe that organizations like the SCO and BRIC, that brings Russia together with Brazil, India and China, should play an important role here." [37]
Russian political analyst Andrei Areshev also noted on this score that "Following the August crisis in the Caucasus, political
consultations within the SCO have intensified....The SCO's transformation into an organisation capable of effective resolution, inter alia, of joint defense issues will become ever more relevant as the tension on the Eurasian continent, which is provoked from without, increases further." [38]
An even more forceful assessment is that which follows:
"Changes in world politics that took place after 'the awakening of the Russian bear' could open the SCO’s doors for Tehran, which remains one of the key oil suppliers for China.
"If this should be the case, it may be possible to speak of an unprecedented consolidation of the countries of the Eurasian continent around Beijing and Moscow.
"This will render the US’s attack on Iran impossible and put an end to America’s plans of redrawing the lines in the Middle East and Central Asia.
"Such developments...change the entire world order formed after the collapse of the USSR." [39]
Prospects: World Crisis And Emerging International Alternative
In late October of 2008 the prime ministers of the SCO member states met in Kazakhstan against the backdrop of the worst world financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
At the summit Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that "Amid the global financial turmoil the SCO function acquires new meaning.” [40]
He specified that each member of the organization "offers its competitive advantages to be added to the common asset of interaction on international markets."
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