Of the five Central Asian "stans" straddling the crossroads between China and the Middle East, Russia and South Asia, Tajikistan seems easy to overlook. It doesn't have Uzbekistan's large population and historic cities, nor Kyrgyzstan's jumble of U.S. and Russian military bases, nor Kazakhstan's vast reserves of natural gas. But Tajikistan does have a 1,400 km border with Afghanistan, a (relatively) long history of Islamist insurgency and an inept, kleptocratic government that, say some observers, barely knows what's going on within its borders.
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