Should we behave cynically, as so many nations do, and simply befriend those countries that can supply oil or gas, or can help us battle terrorism?

Washington backs Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- who was favored going into national elections this weekend -- despite his military origins and, at best, quasi-democratic tendencies. U.S. officials figure that without Musharraf, the battle against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan would be lost, and Al Qaeda, now based in northwestern Pakistan, would become even stronger.

The U.S. lavishly supports President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt despite the fact that ordinary Egyptians have few human rights, fundamental freedoms are ignored and democracy is honored more in the breach than in reality. The U.S. State Department occasionally clucks disapproval of Mubarak's excesses but keeps on showering aid. Without him, the U.S. fears, Muslim fundamentalists would govern Egypt and join hands with Osama bin Laden and his ilk.

Earlier we befriended President Islam Karimov, another strong-minded non-democratic ruler, in Uzbekistan. We needed his help in the war in neighboring Afghanistan. However, when he brutalized his own people, massacring hundreds at Andijan in 2005, we were critical. Karimov retaliated by denying the U.S. continued use of a convenient Uzbek air base.

In late September, Bush welcomed President Kurbanguli Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan to the White House with a great show of bonhomie. But Turkmenistan is as depraved a country as Myanmar, and Berdymukhamedov, who assumed office earlier this year, seems to be continuing his predecessor's tight control of the long-deprived Turkmen citizenry. Admittedly, Turkmenistan has oodles of natural gas in its corner of the Caspian Sea, and Washington seeks to have that gas exported through Turkey, not Russia (which now buys trillions of cubic feet at special rates).