Behr-dee-mukh-uh-MEH'-duv in the White House

In the 1990s or earlier, some knuckle-head who couldn't get his (or her) arms around Central Asia nicknamed it the 'Stans as a catchall for all five of the previously little-known nations. At times the monniker even crossed the Caspian and embraced Azerbaijan, which while also a Muslim Turkic nation technically is part of the Caucasus. The stab at a cutism, however, I think helped ordinary outsiders digest these new nations as places distinct from, say, Russia. And the rest is history -- Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev it seems only has to call to say he's in town to get an Oval Office visit. The same goes for Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev.

But what can you do with Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov? There's simply no dignified way of abbreviating the ten-syllable name of Turkmenistan's new president. I even inquired of my wife, who as regular readers of this blog know is a Kazakh; she looked at me as though into the eyes of a child.

Which brings me to President Bush. Bush and his successor are simply going to have to bear down and learn to pronounce this man's name. Why? Because Turkmenistan, the possessor of the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas, is the improbable key to winning the current European pipeline war with Russia. Russia wants Turkmenistan's gas to nail down its dominance of the European natural gas market, while the U.S. and Europe want it to diversify Europe's natural gas supply away from Russia. Without Turkmenistan, neither can win.

So far, Russia is far in the lead, and a large part of the reason is courtship -- Russia's Vladimir Putin has met with Berdymukhamedov multiple times over the last year, even flying down to Turkmenistan. Yesterday, Putin seemed to win the fruits of his effort by signing a final agreement with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to carry their gas north through a new pipeline. In that part of the world, final is a fungible word, and in my opinion the game still goes on.

Meanwhile Bush has relegated Berdymukhamedov to a mere handshake at the United Nations. This is a blunder. Berdymukhamedov needs to find himself in the White House, over at Camp David, in America's embrace, getting a shoulder massage, a drink, a cigar.

Again, the West has something to learn from Putin.