NEW YORK, Sept 1: Decrying that “the United States has a nasty habit of embracing foreign dictators when they seem to serve American interests,” the New York Times noted that “Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent calls for bringing democracy to Iraq ring hollow as long as Washington is silent about Gen Pervez Musharraf’s arbitrary rule in Pakistan.”

In a scathing editorial “Dancing with Dictators,” the Times said: “When Washington preaches democracy while tolerating the tyranny of allies, America looks double-faced. That’s certainly the unflattering picture the world sees today.”

“Mr Bush has ordered the government to dry up the funding of Islamic terrorism, but Saudi Arabia is the principal financier of groups that promote such terrorism. The White House is pressing the Palestinians to establish democratic institutions while largely condoning the undemocratic actions of Mr Mubarak. Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent calls for bringing democracy to Iraq ring hollow as long as Washington is silent about Gen Musharraf’s arbitrary rule in Pakistan,” the paper said.

Observing that “a long, unhappy history illustrates the cost of cozying up to dictators” the Times said “that the blank checks Washington wrote to Gen Ziaul Haq in the 1980s helped nurture what later became Al Qaeda. Decades of misguided American support for Gen Suharto in Indonesia and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, now Congo, left both countries a legacy of debt, violent ethnic conflict and weak institutions. Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines was another painful embarrassment.”