The United States appears caught in a bind as the fate of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, its pre-eminent ally in the "war on terror," hangs in the balance.

"The United States has still not given up on Musharraf," commented Marvin Weinbaum, an expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan at Washington's Middle East Institute.

"But our failure here is to appreciate until very late that there's a political transition going on in Pakistan, and that the person we've put all our money on was not going to be there for us any more," he said.

Pakistani opposition leaders are warning that the US administration of President George W. Bush risks undermining its own interests if it continues to back the military ruler.

Speaking in Washington Tuesday, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said the United States had been guilty of a "strategic miscalculation" in supporting General Musharraf, who seized power in 1999.

The self-exiled politician said that under Musharraf, Pakistan had become "the petri dish of the international extremist movement," and that only a new government with broad support could root out Islamic militancy.

On Monday, the US embassy in Islamabad issued an unusually harsh rebuke of Musharraf's government, criticizing the arrest of dozens of opposition activists as "extremely disturbing."

That was the most outspoken US comment yet on the unfolding crisis in the nuclear-armed nation. The White House and State Department have been more measured in urging all sides to manage a smooth return to democracy.

When Bhutto's top opposition rival, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was booted back to Saudi Arabia on his return to Pakistan two weeks ago, a White House spokesman said it was an "internal matter."

Interviewed by CNN before his failed return, Sharif said the United States was backing the wrong horse, insisting that only a "democratic government can effectively fight terror."

With Bhutto planning to return to Pakistan next month, Weinbaum said: "The irony is that maybe Bhutto ought to be distancing herself from the US given that the US standing in Pakistan is so dismally low."

On the other hand, analysts say, neither Bhutto nor Sharif are in the best odor in Washington given the allegations of rampant corruption that marred their terms in office in the 1990s.

Musharraf, 64, plans to stand down from the army if re-elected as president in a parliamentary vote on October 6. He would then be sworn in as civilian leader of the Islamic republic before his current term ends on November 15.

Pakistan's Supreme Court is hearing opposition legal challenges arguing that Musharraf is ineligible to run while he remains army chief. A decision is expected by the end of the week.

The US government enlisted Musharraf as a crucial ally after the September 11 attacks of 2001, and has lavished an estimated 10 billion dollars on his regime to fight violent extremists.

But criticism has been mounting, not least in the Democratic-led Congress, that Washington has been short-changed given that the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan and that Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden remains at large.

"We have no Pakistan policy. We have a Musharraf policy. That's a bad policy," White House hopeful Joseph Biden said in a debate among Democratic presidential contenders last month.

Pakistan's "overwhelming majority of moderates... should have their day" through free elections, he said.

While quietly endorsing on-off power-sharing talks between Musharraf and Bhutto, the Bush administration has stayed above the fray.

Bhutto did not have any government contacts during her Washington visit this week but did meet with aides to Biden, who is chairman of the Senate's foreign relations committee, and with staff of the Senate armed services committee.

At the Brookings Institution last week, former US assistant secretary of defense Peter Rodman said Washington needs to move beyond the Musharraf regime and repair its tattered image among the Pakistani public.

Arguing that Pakistan was at a historic cross-roads, he said: "It's an opportunity for us to be on the right side in the eyes of the Pakistanis."


(Courtesy:AFP)