Excellent article. Central Asia has been all but invisible to the West for more than a century because of Russian/Soviet domination. We need to pay attention to what's happening east of the Caspian and (what's left of) the Aral Sea.
I was deployed to Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan in 2003-04. At the time it looked like the beginning of a friendship between us and the Uzbeks. I forgot that Karimov is a Stalinist dictator. Not as bad as in Turkmenistan (that place might as well be North Korea). Anyway, we're gone and the Russians are back in. Too bad.
Also if you google Alexander Dugin and come up with his Wikipedia article, it talks about France and Germany being part of a stretegic line, and Iran being an important partner. All fits in perfectly with what Putin has been doing in the last few years.