Word: pakistani
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...world, America would tell Musharraf that he'll get no more aid unless he hands over power. The problem is that in Pakistan, the military has always held power, even when civilians are nominally in charge. And as former State Department official Daniel Markey notes in Foreign Affairs, many Pakistani officers distrust the U.S. because we cut off aid in the 1990s. Threatening to do so again would probably push Islamabad into the arms of its other big ally, China, and make it even less helpful in the struggle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda...
...sideline Musharraf, but we have some influence over how he rules. By Pakistani standards, his eight years in office haven't been terrible. He has allowed some press freedom (including a Saturday Night Live--style comedy show that often lampoons him). And guided by his Prime Minister, former Citibank executive Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan's economy has boomed. That's the good news...
...news is that rather than strengthening Pakistan's progressive middle class (the people we'd like to eventually supplant him) he has strengthened its Islamist radicals (the people we pray never do). Pakistani generals have a tradition of promoting jihadist militants, to use either as a club against regional enemies like India or as an excuse for retaining power. And Musharraf is no exception. In 2002, he manipulated parliamentary elections to hand Islamists control of two Pakistani provinces that border Afghanistan. By undermining Pakistan's large, relatively secular parties, he has left mosques and madrasahs as the most potent vehicles...
Lawyers across Pakistan burst into tears and cries of jubilation today, as Pakistan's Supreme Court restored the country's Chief Justice, Muhamed Iftikhar Chaudhry, whose sacking by embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last March sparked national protests. "They have given new life to the nation. For the first time in [my] life I have saluted the judges," says Supreme Court lawyer and activist Ali Ahmed Kurd, a Chaudhry supporter. "It proved that Pakistan has not yet gone dry." What it augurs for Pakistan's President may be something else...
...Musharraf really does take both gloves off in the tribal areas, that will just increase the likelihood of a split in the army, according to Hamid Gul, former head of the powerful Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). "The officer's cadre are liberal, secular, they come from the elite classes. But the rank and file of the army were never secular, they were always religious," says Gul. "If there is a face-off between the army and people, the leadership may lose control of the army. The army does not feel happy. They are from the same streets...