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President Musharraf’s declaration of an emergency in Pakistan presents the West with effective blackmail. Ousting the President of Pakistan runs the risk of giving nuclear arms to extreme Islamists, another military despot or the descent of a restless and divided people into anarchy similar to that of Afghanistan. However, Musharraf’s flagrant disregard for his own judiciary, polling procedures and opposition leaders is creating an embarassment for his Western supporters.

Pakistan is no longer the darling of the Western powers since it sought support from China for its military expansion. Instead, Islamabad’s sworn enemy India now enjoys the nuclear and financial favouritism of the global North. The only card that Musharraf’s regime has to play is that Pakistan represents an important front in the war on terror.

Bordered by Afghanistan, India, Iran and China, the government in Islamabad feigns to be on the brink of decsending into a dangerous civil war or insurrection which can only be avoided with more arms, patience and money. This has been the policy of the President so far. Progress is minimal as peace in Pakistan will only benefit civilian politicians and negate the role of the military.

However, President Musharraf has ignored ordinary Pakistanis for too long and the simmering tensions in the country are threatening to boil over -tensions heightened by the flow of refugees and political Islamists into the country. The writing should have been on the wall when female students at a notorious Madrassa took hostages earlier in the year -claiming that the government was not doing enough to maintain moral dignity. In the same way, the cowardly bombings of Benazir Bhutto’s supporters should have been skillfully avoided by a leader with his people’s interests at heart.

Instead, it has become patently clear that President Musharraf is incapable of uniting Pakistan’s disparate political spectrum, much less preparing it for the transition into democracy. Musharraf’s failing is not in his skill, for his procrastination technique is well advanced, rather it is his intractable love of military rule which exposes him as the dangerous peg in Pakistan’s political fabric.

Let’s hope that Benazir’s flawed past does not preclude her from rising to these formidable challenges.