The bloodbath in Andijan earlier this month has brought Uzbekistan, one of the world’s most obscure states, into the headlines for the first time since its independence after the break-up of the Soviet empire 14 years ago.

Even before the full story of what had happened could be pieced together, the Andijan incident had been transformed into another topic in the global ideological battle that we have witnessed since President George W. Bush declared his war on terror almost four years ago.

To the anti-Bush and anti-US crowd the tragedy in Andijan was one more example of American duplicity. Here was President Islam Karimov, an Oriental potentate of the type that Bush has vowed to overthrow in the name of democratization, unleashing his bloodhounds against women and children staging a peaceful demonstration in support of their imprisoned men-folk.

At the other end of the spectrum we had the realpolitik crowd, whose views were recently spelled out in an op-ed by Henry Kissinger. They saw the events in Andijan as a clash between a pro-West government and armed fanatics. The subtext of that analysis is that the US and other Western democracies should “understand” the crackdown ordered by Karimov in Andijan because he is, after all, “on our side.”

The Manichean approach to Uzbek events, however, will not help us understand their origins let alone guess their trajectory.

Karimov and his regime are not creatures of the United States.

Karimov was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) when the empire disintegrated and he found himself master of Uzbekistan. Since 1991 he has presided over a regime that, though labeled neo-Communist, is, in fact, a traditional autocracy of the kind that Uzbeks knew until the 19th century when they were absorbed into the Czarist Empire.

Since independence, the Karimov regime has been a Moscow favorite. Uzbekistan is one of only two Central Asian republics to have a defense agreement with Moscow and to host a Russian military base. In 1998 it was the first regional power to join Russia in the anti-terrorism pact that has since attracted other members including China and Kazakhstan.

The US became interested in Uzbekistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks against New York and Washington. At the start of the war against the Taleban in 2001, the American military welcomed the use of a base in Termez, in southern Uzbekistan close to the Afghan border.

Like other potentates in the region, Karimov has tried to profit from Washington’s determination to crush Islamist terrorism. He has cast himself in the role of the champion of secularism against religious fanatics. The truth, however, is that Karimov was, until a couple of years ago, posing as a champion of Islam against what he termed “godless, Western secularism.” His government has financed the building of some 3000 mosques and runs hundreds of Islamic schools.

It has cracked down on secularist, often nationalist, parties such as Erk (Honor), led by Muhammad Salih, and Birlik (Unity) led by Abdul-Rahim Pulad. Karimov has played the Islamic card against the Christian, largely Russian, minority that accounts for some six percent of the population, while targeting the Persian-speaking Tajiks, some eight percent of the population, with a mixture of religious and ethnic themes.

For all that, Karimov is not another Saddam Hussein. Uzbekistan is not dotted with mass graves as Iraq was under Saddam. The number of political prisoners in Karimov’s Uzbekistan does not exceed a few hundred, compared to tens of thousands in Iraq under Saddam. Nor has Karimov driven nearly a fifth of his nation into exile as Saddam had done. As for corruption, compared to Saddam Hussein’s Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves set up, Karimov’s kleptocracy looks like a Sunday choir, if only because Uzbekistan does not enjoy Iraq’s oil bonanza.

But should the US support Karimov in the name of joint struggle against Islamist terror?

The answer must be: No.

In Uzbekistan, as in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the choice is not between a despotic incumbent and his terrorist opponents.

For at least two decades the Western powers saw Saddam Hussein as “a rampart of secularism against Islamism.”

In 1983 Claude Cheysson, France’s minister for external affairs, justified his country’s massive military support for Iraq in the war against Iran with these words: “Saddam Hussein is the standard-bearer of the values of the French Revolution against an obscurantist theocracy.”

Throughout the 1980s the US, though playing third fiddle to the French and Russians in Iraq, also supported Saddam Hussein.

But who are the people against whom the US and other Western powers supported Saddam Hussein? They are people like Jalal Talabani, now president of liberated Iraq, and Ayatollah Ali Muhammad Sistani, the man mentioned for a Nobel Peace Prize. Today, the US and other Western powers realize that they had, in fact, been supporting Saddam Hussein against the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people who have no particular reason to be anti-West or anti-US.

The Karimov regime is certainly facing a challenge from Islamist terrorists. In the past decade, the so-called Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb Tahrir Islami) has been behind numerous armed attacks in the Ferghana Valley and Surkhan-Dareh. Scores of Uzbek militants have also trained with Afghan and Pakistani terrorist groups, including the Taleban and the Jaish-Muhammad (Muhammad’s Army), and fought in both Afghanistan and Kashmir. The attempt by Islamist leader Bakhtiar Rahimov to seize control of the town of Qarasu on the Kyrgiz border last week might look like a quixotic gesture. But it does indicate the determination of some Islamists to provoke a civil war in Uzbekistan.

Nevertheless, the Islamists do not have the popular base needed for making a serious bid for power in Tashkent. Their influence is largely limited to two of the 12 provinces. But even there they have been able to heighten their profile because the regime has banned secularist and democratic parties from normal political activity. Thus we witness a deadly tango in which Karimov and the Islamists dance as a couple.

Uzbek Islam is largely organized through Sufi fraternities and other traditional structures that reject radical ideologies such as Khomeinism and Bin Ladenism.

Today in Uzbekistan, as yesterday in Iraq, the choice is not between a secular despot and Islamist tyranny. The sociopolitical base for democratization in Uzbekistan may even be stronger than was the case in pre-liberation Iraq if only because the Karimov regime has not been able to wipe out its domestic opponents as massively as Saddam Hussein had done in the 1990s. There are dozens of nongovernmental groups, human rights associations, professional organizations, and trade unions that could be mobilized against both Karimov and the Islamists.

There are also several political parties, including two with mass support in rural areas where more than 60 percent of Uzbeks live, that could emerge as part of a broad democratic front against both Karimov and the Islamists.

The Uzbek middle class, though still small, is, nevertheless, more politically mature than its Iraqi counterpart under Saddam Hussein. Its presence in strategic locations, notably the capital Tashkent and such cities as Kokand, Urganzh, and Samarqand, could give it a leading role in a process of democratization.

By claiming that the choice is between him and the Islamist deluge, Karimov is using the argument that President Askar Aqayev had used in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. Bu Aqayev is gone and the sky has not fallen. Nor is there any prospect of an Islamist regime emerging in Bishkek. In Uzbekistan the choice is between democracy, in its many forms, and tyranny in its multiple incarnations including the Siamese twins of Islamism and Karimovism.