President Bush's eponymous doctrine holds that the realpolitik of the past, under which America supported a local genocidal tyrant as long as he was 'our' genocidal tyrant, was a major factor behind the development of terrorist networks that threaten the free world. The Bush doctrine proposed instead a new governing principle: that America would only support third world leaders who were genuinely attempting to create the institutions of a free society, because only free societies could be allies in the mighty task of suppressing the appetite of tyrants and fanatics for global conquest. So why are America and the UK propping up the appalling tyranny in Uzbekistan, where demonstrators thought to number in the thousands have been slaughtered in the last few days? As the Telegraph reports:

'Much of the blame for the present crisis rests on the shoulders of the United States, Britain and European powers who since September 2001 have refused to support democracy and instead propped up dictatorships in Central Asia...emocratic change in the region. Instead, the Pentagon established close relations with Uzbekistan in 1998, funding and training Uzbek troops to deal with Islamic extremists.

'The CIA and MI6 followed suit, helping to train and re-organise the Uzbek security services which are notorious for torture. After September 2001 the US leased military bases from Mr Karimov while Uzbekistan became one of 10 countries where the CIA has ''rendered'' dozens of al-Qa'eda suspects in the full knowledge that they would be abused.

'US diplomats and some of their British colleagues, such as Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Tashkent, fought a losing battle with the Pentagon and the intelligence services, urging them to push for reforms.Instead, more aid was showered on the Uzbek military and secret service. The harsh words the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, used to condemn the Uzbek regime on Sunday were almost exactly the same that Mr Murray, who was forced to resign, used in his reports to the Foreign Office in 2002.'

It's no use arguing that the Uzbek regime is a key ally in the war against terror. The whole point of the Bush doctrine is that relying on a psychopath to control other psychopaths is a Faustian pact which almost inevitably results in complicity in the slaughter of innocents and the perpetuation of the very global terror that such an alliance was intended to combat.

A doctrine that is only selectively applied is not a doctrine at all. It is humbug.