Furthermore, the recent global recession has ravaged prices for the country's aluminum and cotton exports, causing a massive emigration among men in search of work in neighboring countries. In 2008, the number of Tajik labor emigrants soared to a new record, estimated by some specialists to exceed 1 million, or more than half of the country's labor force. Their remittances exceeded $2 billion, almost half of Tajikistan's gross domestic product. Of all the "Stans" of former Soviet Central Asia, Tajikistan is the closest to becoming a so-called failed state. A report released two months ago by the International Crisis Group summed up the country's travails with its ominous title, "Tajikistan: On the Road to Failure."

In seeking to resolve the insurgency in Afghanistan, the Obama administration has concluded that its efforts must be extended to Pakistan as well. Thoughtful administration officials and EU bureaucrats might extend their gazes northward from Afghanistan's 750-mile border with Tajikistan across the Pamir Mountains and consider the implications of the country's further unraveling, which would allow Islamic radicalism another exit channel, this time northward into the heart of Central Asia and possibly what lies beyond.

Not that Western governments and fiscal agencies will have an easy time aiding Dushanbe. While corruption is a fact of life throughout most of the former Soviet Union, in Tajikistan it has reached the point that the country scored the lowest ranking of all former Soviet republics in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2007, placing 150th out of 179 countries surveyed. While Tajikistan is one of the world's poorest countries, corruption -- particularly bribery and nepotism -- stymies attempts at economic reform, as power has become consolidated in the hands of a relatively small number of individuals.

The administration of President Emomali Rakhmon has set its sights on completing two unfinished Soviet-era projects, the Nurek and Sangtuda 1 and 2 hydroelectric cascades, to solve the country's chronic energy shortages that have plagued economic development. In order to raise funding on the international market, however, Tajik officials are going to have to make some serious headway against the corruption, creative bookkeeping and thievery that have besmirched the country's reputation.

In the most egregious instance of misappropriation of foreign aid, a year ago the International Monetary Fund took the unprecedented step of publicizing its determination of accounting fraud by the National Bank of Tajikistan and the Finance Ministry in Dushanbe, which submitted falsified reports about foreign aid, as auditors uncovered the disappearance of millions of dollars of international loan funds. A March 5 news release dryly observed that the "Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund met today to review a report from the managing director on non-complying disbursements to the Republic of Tajikistan and a breach of obligations under Article VIII, Section 5 of the IMF's Articles of Agreement." In a startling defense, the Tajik government essentially claimed that, had it submitted accurate figures about the state of the national economy, it never would have received the funds to begin with. The IMF subsequently demanded that Tajikistan repay $47 million in loan money.

Dwarfing these fiscal peccadilloes, however, this month the respected British auditing firm of Ernst & Young reportedly uncovered a massive $850 million fraud at the NBT. From 1996 to 2008, NBT Chairman Murodali Alimardonov reportedly diverted around $856 million of NBT funds to his Credit-Invest financial investment company. Alimardonov allegedly did this before moving to the post of deputy prime minister last year. In a case of classic understatement, on April 14 the Russian radio station Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei reported, "Officials of the Tajik government have not commented on this information."

As for Alimardonov, he is no longer at the NBT; on Jan. 25, Rakhmon appointed him vice premier in charge of the economy. It is not surprising that the independent Avesta news agency on April 2 placed Alimardonov on its "Top 100 -- samye bogatye i bliiatel'nye liudi Tadzhikistana," or top-100 list of the richest and most influential people of Tajikistan.

Just to round out this extraordinary scenario, on April 13 the Tajik Prosecutor General's Office issued an arrest warrant for Mahmadullo Qurbonov, the former director of the Nurek hydroelectric power station -- the country's largest -- on embezzlement charges. Qurbonov and his deputy, Mahmadali Halimov, are suspected of purloining about $380,000 in state funds. In the final bizarre twist in this economic fable, late last month, workers at the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric station went on strike over unpaid back wages.

Tajikistan represents both an extraordinary opportunity and extraordinary risk for the international community. The opportunity consists of stabilizing the country and neutralizing it as one of Afghanistan's neighbors at risk from the fundamentalist radicalization emanating from there. The risk stems from continuing to do business with the kleptocracy in Dushanbe as usual. Despite its dolorous experience last year, two months ago the IMF said it would provide the beleaguered Tajik economy $120 million over the next three years, and last month the Asian Development Bank pledged an additional $40 million in aid to Tajikistan, though a definitive agreement has not yet been signed.

Given the European and American determination to stabilize Afghanistan, such aid may ultimately prove to be a bargain in the long run. Given the strategic issues involved, Western governmental auditors should perhaps divert their attention momentarily from wealthy Americans and Europeans stashing funds in tax havens to begin to draw up some regulations with teeth before extending yet more fiscal assistance to Dushanbe, as prosecuting tax scofflaws can wait longer than stabilizing Central Asia. Completed hydroelectric projects could go a long way toward improving the quality of life for the average Tajik, mollifying the social unrest that's continuing to build 18 years after the fall of communism. After all, the former wizards of Wall Street are unlikely to decamp from their penthouses to take potshots at foreign troops in Afghanistan, whereas hungry, poor and radicalized Tajiks need only clamber over some mountains to make the soldiers' lives miserable. As for the Tajik government, it's hard to cram a hydroelectric cascade into a Swiss bank safety-deposit box.

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