Even as tensions have grown between the United States and Russia, both countries have worked with an autocratic leader who rules a strategic nation in Central Asia.
The country is Uzbekistan, and the leader is Islam Karimov, the 76-year-old former Communist Party boss who has been president since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Despite a long record of human rights violations, Uzbekistan has been a key partner for the United States during the Afghan War.
As U.S.
