Our Man in Tashkent

LAST WEEK President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan abruptly released one of the more than 5,300 political prisoners held by his government, a 62-year-old woman named Fatima Mukadirova, who had been arrested for exposing the gruesome death of her son by torture. This week Mr. Karimov's functionaries summoned representatives of local civil society and human rights groups to say that an onerous new registration requirement would be postponed for a month. With such tiny gestures the leader of Central Asia's most populous country seeks to sway one of the most important decisions the Bush administration will make this year about its alliances in the war on terrorism. Though his tokenism could not be more transparent, the dictator's chances of succeeding look better than they should.

Since 2001, Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic bordering Afghanistan, has hosted U.S. planes and troops and received substantial U.S. military and economic aid. Mr. Karimov, a former Soviet Politburo member who proposed and signed a "strategic partnership" agreement with the Bush administration two years ago, hopes for a long-term basing arrangement. The Pentagon is considering just such a deal; Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Tashkent last week and lauded "the wonderful cooperation we've received from the government of Uzbekistan."

There's one hitch: The partnership deal Mr. Karimov signed promised a far-reaching democratic transformation, including multiparty elections, a free press and an independent judiciary. Not only has Uzbekistan implemented none of those reforms, it hasn't even stopped torturing prisoners. Ms. Mukadirova's son died after prison guards pulled out his fingernails and plunged his body into boiling water.

The Bush administration has often vowed not to repeat the Cold War mistake of embracing useful dictators while ignoring their domestic policies, especially in Muslim states such as Uzbekistan. To keep the administration honest, Congress passed legislation last year requiring that all aid to Uzbekistan -- $57.5 million this year, including $11.6 million in military funds -- be contingent on a State Department certification that Uzbekistan is making "substantial and continuing progress" in implementing its commitments under the strategic partnership. So far there's been no certification: On the contrary, the State Department's annual human rights report, issued last week, concluded that "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights" that continues to repress freedom of religion and the press as well as opposition political parties.

The department, however, hasn't yet denied Uzbekistan's certification. Instead, a decision has been pushed back to late spring. Mr. Karimov has been urged to adopt a number of reforms, including lifting restrictions on political parties and nongovernmental groups, freeing the media, and implementing U.N.-prepared recommendations for combating torture. So far nothing has happened; instead, Mr. Karimov toys with the token gestures that other dictators, from Cairo to Beijing, have traditionally used to mollify Washington. Some in the administration argue that should be enough, that it would be worse to cut off Mr. Karimov than to continue "engagement" with him. The Pentagon would like to keep 1,000 American servicemen at Karshi Khanabad airbase, at least for the time being. That's why the administration's decision will be important: If it swallows Mr. Karimov's ploys, it will signal to his neighbors, and the world, that the spread of freedom still matters less to the United States than the "wonderful cooperation" of a dictator.