The SCO: Just like NATO, really?

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Bloomberg reports that Russia and China are worried about the United States perceived sole superpower status. The two nations are willing to do business with Iran in order to change the balance of the world security order that they feel is badly out of whack. Another important subtext to the conference is that Russia and China are seeking to present themselves as potential developers of Central Asia's vast oil and gas reserves without carrying the political package with them that doing business with the US sometimes brings.

As the Monitor report continues:

[T]he orientation of the group's members are increasingly aligning to project a more united front that is, if not hostile to, then outwardly suspicious of U.S. military, economic, geopolitical and -- some might say -- neo-imperialistic interests in the region

If enlarged to include the group's four observer states -- Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan, and India -- currently under consideration, the SCO would dwarf NATO's size and be home to large amounts of the world's natural gas and nuclear ammo.

As the Monitor continues:

Back in the Cold War era, NATO was often described as a way to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out. The SCO, it might be said, is meant to keep the Russians down, the Chinese in, and the Americans out.

I hope we can take [Chinese President Hu Jintao] at his word, that the SCO "will support all activities that benefit regional peace, stability and economic progress and will help preserve the solidarity and security of its member countries," as he was reported as saying. But I, for one, am not so sanguine about this. But others might be, for example all the people I encounter who claim to want American influence to decline in the world. Maybe this budding SCO gives them that warm, cozy feeling that I, frankly, am not just not experiencing here.