WASHINGTON, May 26: The US policy of supporting autocratic rulers to fight terrorism will have disastrous consequences for the world as did the policy of backing dictators to fight communism, says an editorial published in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

The paper called the US support for “reliably anti-communist dictators”, including the shah of Iran to Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua to Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, “a terrible mistake for which the US, and the world, paid dearly”.

According to the paper, “worst of all is its policy toward Pakistan, where the administration refuses to distance the US from the increasingly errant autocrat Pervez Musharraf.”

“Terrified that Mr Musharraf might be assassinated or overthrown by a fundamentalist Islamic regime that would inherit a nuclear arsenal, Washington has given the general the benefit of every doubt,” the Times said.

“Now Gen. Musharraf has sacked a Supreme Court justice who appeared hostile to his scheme to rig himself a third term as president and generalissimo,” the paper claimed.