Craig Murray, erstwhile UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, is a courageous man. He has lost his job for criticising the human rights record of Uzbekistan, a Western ally and for saying that British intelligence use evidence extracted from prisoners tortured by Uzbek authorities. Murray is right. Getting into bed with unsavoury regimes is immoral, unprincipled and ultimately disastrous. It does not help the ‘war against terrorism’.
The West, in particular the US, has a track record of befriending tyrannies in pursuance of its political and strategic interests. For example, to contain the spread of communism, the US supported and propped some of the most appalling regimes and organisations. Some of those decisions continue to haunt the West today. Afghanistan is a prime example. To counter the Soviets, the US provided material help to various Mujahideen groups, including those which, in due course, metamorphosed into the Taliban and Al Qaeda. It is now clear that a period of communism would have been good for modernising Afghanistan.
Another example is that of Saddam and Iraq. To deal with the ‘threat’ posed by Iran, the West supported and armed Saddam. Perhaps that is why the US and the UK are so convinced that Saddam was a threat: because they supplied all the WMD in the first place.
I believe that this duplicitous approach to foreign policy is self-defeating. When the US talks of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, why should the citizens of neighbouring pro-Western tyrannies believe them? US policy makers should remember that anti-American feeling is strongest in countries that are officially considered to be friendly.
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