The sanctimonious P.M.’s big business with dictators.

KAZAKHSTAN'S vast oil reserves and proximity to Afghanistan have made it a crucial ally in the past decade, but few observers have any illusions about its corrupt, despotic ruler. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has led the country since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991; in 2011 he was reelected with 95 percent of the vote. The rubber-stamp parliament has granted Nazarbayev the permanent right “to address the people of Kazakhstan at any time” and to approve all “initiatives on the country’s development.”

Yet Nazarbayev has found one important Western cheerleader. Last year, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared in a dreary neo-Stalinist propaganda video produced by a Kazakh TV station and exclaimed that Nazarbayev had displayed “the toughness necessary to take the decisions to put the country on the right path.” The movie features extensive interviews with Nazarbayev and Western energy executives praising him, as well as fawning interventions from Blair. “In the work that I do there, I’ve found them really smart people, capable, very determined, and very proud of their country,” he enthuses.

Blair’s fondness for Central Asian dictators is not limited to Nazarbayev. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, is the man that a WikiLeaks cable compared to Sonny Corleone, thanks to his thin skin and temper. His domestic critics have been imprisoned, and less than sycophantic media outlets have been harassed. But none of this seems to have bothered Blair, who traveled to Azerbaijan in 2009 and saw a leader with a “very positive and exciting vision for the future of the country.”

Why is Tony Blair, the man who embodied liberal hawkishness and democracy promotion, shilling for these dictatorships? Perhaps it doesn’t hurt that he is earning millions of dollars advising Nazarbayev on “governance” and that his lucrative Azeri trip was paid for by a wealthy local businessman and former government lobbyist. It is generally taken as a given that politicians, upon leaving office, will enter the private sector and earn a good living. But for the pious, moralistic leader who wagered his career on bringing down Saddam Hussein through a war he portrayed as a humanitarian imperative, the contrast with his public sector service is striking. Blair’s ambition to create a more democratic world may have shrunk, but his bank account has certainly grown.

BLAIR'S WORK in Central Asia is just a small component of the burgeoning business he’s built since resigning in 2007. The Financial Times estimates that last year alone he took in $30 million from giving speeches and consulting with governments and corporations. His customers have included JPMorgan Chase—which pays his firm, Tony Blair Associates, approximately $4 million annually according to the newspaper—and the monarchy of Kuwait, which has an unflattering record on human rights. Blair has also established a network of nonprofit smiley-face initiatives, such as the Faith Foundation, which “aims to promote respect and understanding about the world’s major religions.”