(Ted Galen Carpenter) The U.S. government has had a long, dishonorable history of forging and sustaining close relations with murderous dictatorships – as long as they supported Washington’s foreign policy. Such authoritarian US allies as the Shah of Iran, Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, the Saudi royal family, and a succession of South Korean and Guatemalan military rulers (among others) were confirmation of that cynical approach throughout the Cold War. US administrations (especially Ronald Reagan’s administration) also looked the other way or even offered quiet support as the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina executed brutal, indiscriminate crackdowns.