Pakistan's turmoil threatens world

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- It has been called the most dangerous country in the world.

And that was before Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule in the Islamic and nuclear-armed nation.

Now, there seems little question that Pakistan's turmoil has put the country, the region, the United States and its allies all in very difficult predicaments.

On Monday, as police fired tear gas and clubbed lawyers protesting Musharraf's crackdown, the U.S. and other nations called for elections to be held as scheduled and said they were reviewing aid to Pakistan.

But, at best, elections are two months away, and what happens between now and then may matter far more.

In Monday's largest protest, in the eastern city of Lahore, lawyers dressed in black suits and ties chanted "Musharraf Go!" as they defied the government's ban on rallies. Some fought back with stones and tree branches.

Musharraf's crackdown has mainly targeted his most potent critics -- the judiciary and lawyers, independent television stations and opposition activists. Opposition groups said 3,500 were arrested, though the government reported half that total.

President Bush urged Musharraf to hold parliamentary elections as scheduled in January and relinquish his army post as soon as possible. "Our hope is that he will restore democracy as quickly as possible," Bush said.

But there did not appear to be a unified position among senior government officials on whether they planned to hold the election as planned. The attorney general said the vote would take place as scheduled but then conceded there was a chance of a delay. The prime minister also left open the possibility of a delay.

The demonstrations so far have been limited largely to opposition activists, rights workers and lawyers angered by his attacks on the judiciary. There does not appear to be a groundswell of popular resistance and all the protests have been quickly and sometimes brutally stamped out.

The streets of Pakistan appeared normal Monday with people going about business as usual for the most part.

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup and is also head of Pakistan's army, suspended the constitution Saturday ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on whether his recent re-election as president was legal. He ousted seven independent-minded Supreme Court judges, put a stranglehold on independent media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.

Musharraf's leadership is threatened by the Islamic militant movement that has spread from border regions to the capital, the reemergence of political rivals, including former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and an increasingly defiant Supreme Court.

The court has emerged as the chief check on Musharraf, who has been promising democracy ever since he seized power. The judiciary has proved surprisingly independent for a country that has been under military rule for most of the 60 years since it was founded.

The emergency decree appeared aimed primarily at heading off any Supreme Court challenge to Musharraf prolonging his eight-year rule.

The opposition has been demanding Musharraf relinquish his post as army chief and says he should be disqualified because he contested the presidential vote as army chief.

Musharraf has also moved quickly to control the media, which he said was partly to blame for the current crisis. Authorities have blacked out TV networks and threatened broadcasters with jail time, but so far have spared the Internet and most newspapers. Most people in Pakistan, where illiteracy is rife, get their news from TV or radio.

Police raided and briefly sealed a printing press belonging to Pakistan's largest media group on Monday. They also tried to storm a press club in Karachi. Broadcasts by independent news networks remained blocked, and domestic transmissions of BBC and CNN went off the air.

Musharraf's actions force the Bush administration to walk a delicate line in dealing with a key ally in the war on terrorism, one armed with nuclear weapons in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods.

There are no good options.

The U.S. could cut off the billions of dollars of annual support, but that could undermine counterterrorism efforts. Continued support for the Musharraf government would bring ridicule from human-rights advocates and make a mockery of Bush's "freedom agenda."

The administration may have to concede it has little direct influence over Musharraf, some analysts suggest. That could lead to doing little in hopes the crisis will pass, while condemning Musharraf's consolidation of power and arrests of hundreds of activists and political opponents.

Given the Pakistani general's growing unpopularity in his own country, his hold on power may be fragile. He could be vulnerable to the same kind of coup by the Pakistan military that he used to seize power in October 1999.

"We want to be a champion for democracy, we want to be pushing for that. But we also have to recognize that instability or state collapse in Pakistan at this time would be a nightmare for everyone," said Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon defense strategist and now president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense think tank.

"What we should be doing is trying to get the reasonable parties within Pakistan back into dialogue with each other," she said.

The White House and State Department clearly were struggling for a second day on Monday in weighing options. The dilemma confronting the U.S. was clear from President Bush's on-one-hand, on-the-other-hand response to the crisis.

Calling Musharraf's strong-arm tactics an affront to democracy, Bush declared: "We expect there to be elections as soon as possible and that the president should remove his military uniform."

Still, talking with reporters after a meeting with Turkey's prime minister, Bush noted Musharraf "has been a strong fighter against extremists and radicals. ... And our hope is that he will restore democracy as quickly as possible."

The White House suggested that the administration would hew to a middle course, neither supporting new sanctions nor condoning the suspension of democracy, in an effort to get the Pakistani government back on track.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates both said U.S. aid to Pakistan would be scrutinized. The White House later said this review was mainly focused on whether aid programs might be affected by provisions in existing law that could be triggered by Musharraf's move to consolidate power.

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., chairwoman of a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, said on Monday that Congress would "review all relevant economic and military aid" to make sure it was advancing American interests.

But P.J. Crowley, an official at the National Security Council and the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, warned against "an impulse on Capitol Hill to cut back the aid. I think that would be a mistake. If we are going to maintain the leverage we have with Pakistan, the aid can be useful."

"There may be some tweaks that can be made to it," added Crowley, now with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, about $10 billion in U.S. assistance has gone to Pakistan.

According a breakdown by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, close to 60 percent has reimbursed Pakistan for its help in the war on terrorism.

Roughly 15 percent, or close to $1.6 billion, has helped pay for weapons systems and other "security assistance." Another 15 percent consisted of direct payments to the government of Pakistan while the remaining 10 percent covered "development and humanitarian assistance," including relief for the 2005 earthquake.

Frederick Barton, an analyst and Pakistan expert at the center who oversaw the study, said he supported "some internal review of where our $2 billion a year is going."

"This is a chance to broaden our base in Pakistan by saying that the need of the Pakistani people will continue irrespective of this power play by Musharraf," Barton said. He suggested a shift of U.S. assistance away from major weapons systems and the military "into a closer alignment with the people of the country."

"We also need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable -- which is that Musharraf will leave, whether it is in 10 minutes or 10 weeks. We should be working under the assumption that he's not a permanent fixture," Barton said.

Rice, touring the Middle East, called Musharraf from her plane on Monday to underscore U.S. opposition to his decision to impose what political rival and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has described as martial law.

Adding to the situation's delicacy: the unpopularity of the United States in Pakistan. A poll in August by Terror Free Tomorrow, a bipartisan group that seeks to reduce support for international terrorism, found that just 19 percent of Pakistanis surveyed had favorable views of the U.S. -- about half the 40 percent who said they had favorable views of longtime enemy India.

"We are just 48 hours into this," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "I think it deserves a thorough review, a comprehensive review, and not something we should rush in terms of any actions that we take."