Beset with many crises and having committed needless blunders, the Musharraf regime is now at its weakest and maybe floundering. Its latest initiative is to accept the London-Washington advice to court Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to join his regime and help him take the country out of the morass it has fallen into.

There seems to be an agreement, perhaps waiting for dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. The first consequence is that there is adverse reaction in both camps: President Musharraf’s supporters are unhappy that they have been kept in the dark and perhaps taken for a ride; the PPP followers are also unhappy at their leaders doing a shabby deal with a failing tyrant.

Final details of this deal have yet to emerge. While many think that this initiative is theoretically right to fight violent Islamic extremism, it should have come a long time ago and should have included other opposition parties also with a view to creating a national consensus, perhaps leading to a national government of all parties.
Look at the requirements of the situation: The country has a severe law and order problem; primary structures of state are crumbling. New anti-state forces are expanding that simply disobey the law and order enforcing agencies and are in fact at war with them.

It is Taliban or the al-Qaeda insurgency in the North West Frontier Province’s tribal areas. Anyone with money and influence who can recruit a hundred or so nominal militants can have a go and is a warlord-in-the-making. He begins collecting taxes (extortions) and enforces the Shariah law by the often illiterate militants as they and he understand it by rough-and-ready methods. They administer justice and provide security there is for the people of the area.

The government is confused and its efforts alternate between brutal efforts to destroy them and appeasing them. The situation in Balochistan again is not under control. A guerrilla war goes on by a shadowy Balochistan Liberation Army. It targets the army posts and other symbols of state. Islamic militants have shown they could tyrannise various localities in the capital city for six long months and the government had to dislodge them from Lal Masjid by brute force, leaving a controversial number dead. With great difficulty, the government could bring its siege to a victorious conclusion on July 11. But on Friday July 27 other protesters of various hues reoccupied that Mosque and running battles ensued with police. The government standing has taken severe knocks.

Islamabad has not recovered from the shock of lawyers’ agitation and the Supreme Court’s Judgement reinstating the Chief Justice of Pakistan. Climate of opinion in Punjab stands changed. Gone are the days when Punjabis were primarily apolitical but respectful to their Army. The acceptability of military rule has eroded fast in Punjab. The lawyers threaten a continuous agitation against the military regime.

Musharraf is however determined to carry out his own plans of winning another term as President from the Assemblies whose term is about to expire on Oct 15 while being the Army Chief on active service. Since he has majority support in these Assemblies, he can sail through the same electoral college that had elected him five years ago.

There are bugs in the plan, however. A far more assertive Supreme Court can spoil the same if opposition parties move it. There is also the mounting pressure from America and Britain for him to doff his uniform and be a civilian President assisted by the enlightened and moderate leader of the PPP. Benazir had already announced that she will never accept a uniformed President.

Indications are that the PPP would not vote against him during the re-election process as he desires; and it would rather abstain and hope to do business with Musharraf after gaining a majority in the elections Benazir would form a government of the PPP, in association with existing ruling parties plus Jamiat Ulama Islam of Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

The image of a failing regime has stuck. A new crisis has broken out: there is persistent American pressure to crush Taliban and al-Qaeda by brute force. It means the US forces would do it themselves inside Pakistan where they think al-Qaeda has set up its headquarters. The point is can Musharraf cope with the consequences of doing that even with the reinforcement from the PPP leader.

Musharraf’s record in war against al-Qaeda and Taliban are not really bad though it is ruined by his alternating between being tough and appeasing the Islamic militants. Benazir and her party’s record is equally mixed. The elder Bhutto was not far behind General Zia in promoting a shallow and competitive religiosity in Pakistan. It was he who declared Qadianis Muslims as non-Muslims. He also abolished alcohol and gambling. Benazir, in 1990s, is said to have supervised the creation and the success of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It remains to be seen whether she and Musharraf together can meet the demands of the critical situation.