Our son of a bitch

President Karimov is a ruthless tyrant, says Daniel Hannan, but he supports the war on terror and is backed by the West. He shouldn’t be

A strange little row has been bubbling away over the past two months concerning our ambassador to Tashkent. You may have seen the odd headline about it in the inside pages of the broadsheets but, unless you have a particular interest in diplomatic affairs, I suspect your eye will quickly have skipped on to the next story. Why, after all, should we be especially interested in Uzbekistan? A tremendously important region for Britain during the Great Game, of course, but hardly of vital strategic interest today.

Yet the curious recall of Craig Murray ought to interest us for two reasons: first, it tells us a great deal about how the Foreign Office operates; and second, it raises serious questions about our conduct of the war on terror.

Before we come to that, though, I ought to declare an interest. I have been associated with Uzbekistan for several years through the European Parliament. (Under the rules, each MEP is automatically put on a foreign delegation. Goody-goody federalists get America or, if they prefer, the Caribbean; I got Uzbekistan.) It is a mesmerising country. Simply reciting the names of its cities — Khiva, Bukhara, Tashkent, Samarkand — makes me feel as though I am reading Omar Khayyam. But it is run by a gang of former communists who treat it more or less as their private property.

Since the break-up of the USSR, Uzbekistan has actually become poorer and less free. Opposition parties have been proscribed, critical journalists silenced and some 7,000 dissidents incarcerated. Despite the overthrow of communism, many Soviet-era regulations remain, including a ban on the private ownership of land. Whereas Uzbeks used at least to be able to move within the USSR, they are now effectively prevented from travelling beyond their borders.