…

Mushy HAS to play both sides, his life depends on it. He knows that if the wacko muslims take him out and take over the country, the U.S. will destroy Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they can be used by aforementioned wacko muslims. Walkin’ a tight rope he is.

The Institutions of his own Qadyani sect were exempt from these news laws due to

However, the Wikpedia article does not reference this sect.

Researching this sect, I read that it was illegal to call yourself a muslim in Pakistan if you belonged to that sect. After Musharraf took power, it said the status of this sect improved, but it was still a crime to proselytize.

However a different Wikpedia article on Musharraf

. The first under ‘Perez Musharraf’ notes he was born in India into a muslim sect

Musharraf on the web. This time I found different information (?!)

The other day, I thought it was Wikpedia

Answer.com says Musharraf’s original promotions in the military came because he followed the hard line Deobandi sect of Islam, which is supposedly the sect followed by the Taliban.

I wouldn’t put much stock in any of his public statements. He has to play to his countrymen, most of whom are at best, uncomfortable with the US alliance.

Gang, mob, mafia, whatever; birds of a feather…

Karen De Young reports today in The Washington Post that the first letter released from the “treasure trove” of documents found in safe houses following Zarqawi’s death portrays a picture of a “debilitated al-Qaeda leadership-in-hiding” in Waziris…

Too easy? I wonder about these too-cute coincidences of stories sometimes, thinking there is a K Street firm getting them out there on behalf of someone whose interests I don’t quite see. But I’ll talk about it anyway. One: FBI……

But does he really think that he is irreplacable?

Having watched Musharraf speak in English with interviewers and in press conferences, my read is quite different.

Musharraf is saying that he could be replaced. And not by someone who’d make the effort to cooperate with the Coalition.

He speaks the truth to the extent that he operates in a more dangerous political landscape than we can imagine in our own mild land. He is on the frontlines, literally, even as he sits in his presidential office in Islmadad. Consider that his country shares a 1000km border with Iran (as well as complicated boundaries in the Arabian Sea), 2500km border with Afghanistan (which in the south includes a vast tri-country area with Iran), a mountainous and porous 500km border with China (and a nearby border with Tajikistan which itself shares a 1200km border with northern Afghanistan), as well as the famously militarized and politically unstable frontier with India.

One cannot fault the Pakistan President for impressing upon an Western audience the centrality of his country, and his government, and his control of that government’s various tentacles (official and unofficial).

Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. Almost all of its population is Muslim, although it is also an increasingly secularized and modernized population despite the reactionary politics of the major oppositon parties. The ultra extremists we are familair with via the pictures and the video of raucus street demonstrations.

Musharraf will see more of that stuff than we ever will here. He faces an legislative election campaign in 2007 in which his party may get shellacked, if things do not go well for the Taliban supporters along his western frontier.

Musharraf knows about military coups, as well, and he knows how to be as ruthless as the next ambitious up-and-comer. Note that he did make a distinction between Pakistan as an ally and the ISI as an ally.

In his brittle way he has pointed out that he, Musharraf, has done as much as can be expected, for now, and that as President he does not control all that happens within his country, or within his own government. Pakistan has democratic features but parts of the country are far more free-ranging than the Old West of American history.

So, yes, Pakistan is central and is the main ally that America has in the Afghanistan theatre. And, yes, if both the Pakistan government (and its military) AND the ISI are aligned against the Coalition, our cause there will be deeply undermined. There would be no neutrality. Today Musharraf is neutral-but-leaning-toward-the-West. If he goes, and he would be replaced by another regime that would probably not bother about the appearance of neutrality as far as the Taliban is concerned.

What he is trying to do is please too many factions and too many allies and too many internal forces. It is really quite remarkable that he has remained standing — with large scale support in the past referendum that extended his presidency by 5 years. This is owed as much to his being the least worst alternative in domestic politics as it is owed to his personal political base and its reach into various segments of Pakistan society. He rules from above, barely, and he governs via a matrix of thin pathways between the seemingly irreconciable factions across Pakistan. He is there, for now, because these factions prefer him to the alternatives.

In sum, he is pointing out that we, the Coaliton, have our eggs in one basket. And without being too explicit, although he’d probably like to state the obvious in unkind terms, his country is a basketcase, politically.

I read much frustration in his various interviews and press conferences. Too much is expected of him and he thinks we are nuts to keep pressing him for yet more.

He may be wrong. He might be able to do more. For now he is focussed on trying to disentengle large militias from al-Qaeda’s influence. If can weaken those ties, even stop them from growing further, he will have helped far more than many of his Western critiques might understand, today. On the other hand, we probably do need him to do more — given the crazy politics in our own country and the numbskill impatience that demands exit strategies and instant results.

Musharraf faces a more raw and violent political struggle in his country, but I think as supporters of the GWOT, most of us can at least empathize with Musharraf vis-a-vis our own exaberated experience with the Blame-America-First nutters and the Withdraw-Redeploy obstructionists in our own little piece of heaven on earth.

In my opinion Musharraf, while not completly cooperating, has been about as a good ally as one could hope for in Pakistan. He is helping the United States who is considered the enemy by the majority of Muslims in that country. It is my understanding that at least 2 assination attempts have been made on his life because of his support for the war on terrorism and the United States.

We must revisit the notion of what constitutes a “moderate” Muslim – because I think they are very rare. Pakistan is filled with “inactive” or “dormant” Muslims who have much in common with the active Islamofacist obsessed with the destruction of Israel and the United States. Musharraf has contributed to at least some form of rational thought in a nation where the Islamofacist could easily take complete control.

If he knows where USAMA is, then why hasn’t he gotten him. Oh, nevermind.

Because he claims he’s in Afghanistan, whose leader claims he’s in Pakistan.

If Mushy decides to go rogue on us our best bet would be to no longer try and smooth over hostilities between Pakistan and India. Some whispering in the right ears and a good stirring of the pot and they end up trading nukes while we whistle and walk away.

IF it gets ‘THAT BAD’, there’s more than one easy button.

And I’m glad he is sorta willing to sorta help…. But does he really think that he is irreplacable?

Let me interrupt you there sir. If Pakistan is not with us, then Pakistan is against us and therefore Pakistan is “next”. Now, you were saying?

America would do well to remember that if Musharraf dies, we have two Irans to deal with.

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