According to the multitude of critics, the early release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi showed western democracy at its muddle-headed, hypocritical worst.

(The only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 in which 270 people died, Al-Megrahi was recently released on compassionate grounds - he's terminally ill - after serving eight years of a life sentence.)

There was, they said, the misguided sentimentality which persuaded the Scottish Government that an unrepentant mass murderer deserved compassion, and the crass disregard for the victims' families. There was the moral bankruptcy that persuaded the British Government that massive oil and gas deals with Libya were more important than justice being done and being seen to be done.

And there was the naiveté of both Governments in believing that a capricious dictator would abide by the unofficial agreement that al-Megrahi would not return to a hero's welcome.

Al-Megrahi has always proclaimed his innocence and many believe him, or at least believe that the prosecution failed by some margin to establish his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The United Nations-appointed observer was severely critical of both the proceedings and the outcome, while a Scottish law professor who devised the trial's framework described the verdict as "totally inexplicable". In 2007 the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Board concluded that al-Megrahi "may have suffered a miscarriage of justice".

Unlike his uncritical admirers, I'm put off by celebrated journalist Robert Fisk's colossal self-regard and working premise that the West is invariably both stupid and reprehensible in its dealings with the Arab world, but his immersion in the Byzantine manoeuvrings of Middle Eastern politics is unrivalled.

Fisk makes a compelling case that the bombing of Pan Am 103 was carried out by Iran's Lebanese proxies in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner by the US guided missile cruiser Vincennes a few months earlier. The comparison is worth dwelling on.

Some 290 passengers were on board the Iran Air A300 which was in Iranian airspace and not exhibiting an attack profile. For three years the US denied that the Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters.

Despite evidence of a gung-ho mindset and raging incompetence on the Vincennes bridge, the US has never admitted wrong-doing nor issued an apology - on his retirement the captain was presented with the Legion of Merit.