Even before we had any idea what was going on in Kyrgyzstan, there was a lot of hand-wringing yesterday over the status of the Manas Air Base/Transit Center after the "revolution" that seems to have taken place there. That has tamped down a bit, once it emerged that Roza Otunbayeva, the new leader of the caretaker government, said that Manas would be unaffected.

Still, this is obviously not the end of the story:

“Its [Manas's] status quo will remain in place,” one opposition leader said during a news conference at the country’s parliament building, according to Reuters. “We still have some questions on it. Give us time and we will listen to all the sides and solve everything.”

What that means is, while the base will stay, the terms the U.S. negotiates for it are likely to change. The question is, whether the U.S. will learn the lesson it should have learned after the last revolution, that it's not wise to give base-related contracts to businesses with connections to the government. Alex Cooley, who follows this better than anyone, told Harper's:

The United States has founded its engagement with the Kyrgyz government on providing lucrative contacts–for fuel and other Manas-related services–worth hundreds of millions of dollars to entities controlled by the Bakiyev ruling family. In the event that the government collapses, its successor will deem these contracts improper and will either terminate or renegotiate them. In fact, in the aftermath of the Tulip Revolution, then interim president Bakiyev publicly denounced the airbase deals that the United States had cut with the deposed Akayev family and demanded a huge increase in base-related rent. The larger lesson for the Defense Department should be clear: placating authoritarian regimes with private contracts and pay-offs does not guarantee long-term stability of relations; in volatile political climates like Kyrgyzstan, it may, in fact, sow the seeds for discontent and political challenges to the regime.

The other main Manas-related lesson from this, it seems, is the danger of the US over-securitizing its relationship with Kyrgyzstan, a point well made in a EurasiaNet commentary yesterday. By ignoring Bakiyev's very apparent growing authoritarianism, the U.S. (indirectly) allowed the situation to fester:

In order to maintain the American presence at Manas, US military officials and diplomats forged close ties with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration. As a result, US officials remained largely silent, or at least offered only mild criticism, when Bakiyev embarked on a series of moves to put the brakes on democratization, including efforts to muzzle independent media outlets and hamper opposition political activity....

While US diplomats called for dialogue in the midst of the crisis, in the months leading up to the April 6-7 violence American diplomacy did little to help foster links between the government and opposition that might have facilitated the resolution of differences without the use of force. US officials likewise did not send strong signals to the Bakiyev administration that Washington disapproved of Bishkek’s move away from the democratization path.

Much more than that, I think, it's too early to say.