WASHINGTON - The deepening conflict in Uzbekistan has left the United States caught between its avowed mission to fight for democracy and its support for an autocratic ally in the war on terror.
The bloody military crackdown on protests in the central Asian state that houses a US military base highlights the same paradoxical ties Washington has with several close allies such as Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
After taking an initial cautious line to the violence that a Uzbek opposition group said had left hundreds dead, the US administration has raised its rhetoric against Tashkent but stopped short of threatening sanctions.
The State Department said it was "deeply disturbed" by the bloodshed and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged hardline President Islam Karimov to adopt political reforms to head off future unrest.
US officials also accused Karimov, a Communist-era strongman who has ruled Uzbekistan since its independence in 1991, of using the anti-terror war as a pretext for a broader campaign of repression.
But the Americans are also concerned that anti-government forces in the impoverished country included militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.
The US response appears to have been more muted than the reaction from London, which said that the moves by Uzbek soldiers to fire into crowds of demonstrators "cannot be justified."
The subject was likely to come up later Tuesday when Rice held a scheduled meeting here with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Martha Brill Olcott, a Central Asian specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Tuesday that Karimov's actions should come as no surprise to Washington.
"These action were entirely predictable," she told a seminar. "We have supported this man for years and years, the US has, Great Britain has. This is not a news flash for us that this man behaved the way he behaved."
Tashkent has become one of the United States' most reliable allies in a region where the Americans fought a war in Afghanistan, are tracking terrorists and have considerable economic and strategic designs.
Human rights groups regularly accuse President George W. Bush's administration of dealing with a regime known for systematic abuses, particularly the use of torture.
The State Department has included criticism of Tashkent in its country reports on human rights but never questioned Karimov's rule or made any serious headway in halting condemned practices.
The Washington Post stressed Tuesday that, despite the US admonitions on rights, Tashkent had lent the Americans an air base, cooperated on intelligence and kept up cordial ties with the Pentagon.
"Mr. Karimov habitually ignores such prodding from the State Department, and understandably so, since he has the Pentagon's unconditional support for a 'strategic partnership,'" the paper wrote in an editorial.
Some analysts said the Americans were facing a dilemma because of the absence of a viable democratic alternative to a regime which is tackling an Islamic rebellion considered worse than the current system.
While Bush has made himself a champion of democratic movements in the former Soviet empire, the situation in Uzbekistan is vastly different, Olcott said.
"This is not Georgia, this is not Ukraine, it's not even Kyrgyzstan," she said. "There is no elite from within the government ... who now stands aside from the government and wants to change the way business is operated."
"The overthrow of the regime has no clear secular relief that can step in and take the place," Olcott said.
05/17/2005 16:38 GMT