A clue to the thinking was available in Musharraf’s press conference held in Islamabad on November 11 evening.

In the course of a rambling question –answer session though primarily addressed to American audience, the commando turned quasi politician said Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry (the sacked-reinstated-deposed chief justice under house arrest) and some other judges had paralysed the administration and law enforcement agencies.

He rejected outright the demand for their reinstatement. Nawaz Sharif and co is in the forefront of the campaign for the reinstatement of the deposed judges. Even Benazir has lent her half-hearted support to the demand.

Frankly, Iftikhar Chaudhry and some of his fellow judges played to the galleries. They were apparently prompted by the way they were able to browbeat the General. And opportunities came knocking at their door. The Missing Persons case for instance. For years, the secret agencies have been a law unto themselves in Pakistan picking up persons at will, sending them packing to interrogation cells and often making them disappear. Post nine- eleven situation made them work overtime to please their American friends.

Once Justice Iftikhar started entertaining pleas on behalf of missing persons, judges down the hierarchy became bold enough to summon not only station house officers but also local representatives of secret agencies. The federal law secretary and interior secretary were made to offer a prayer a minute. The Attorney General materialised long lists of persons from the cup boards of secret agencies. In fact, some of them started waking to freedom in front of TV cameras.

Musharraf and his fraternity were shaken to the core. For the first time in sixty years of its existence as a country, Pakistan establishment has come face to face with a problem it never imagined that ever existed or would exist given the reality that Pakistan is a feudal-military oligarchy with the trappings of democracy.

The US too remained clueless. Washington has a vested interest in perpetuating status quo in its capacity as one of the triumvirate (the other two are Allah and Army) that guide and govern Pakistan.

Yes, the White House and State Department could have counselled some patience to the Generals in a hurry. They did not. Reason? US has its own urgency. And impatience too. Its hands are full with Iraq and Afghanistan. It needs the General to quickly mount an operation in NWFP and the Afghan border belt before winter becomes too severe and makes even aerial operation difficult.

There is an additional factor in the US scheme, according to a long time US watcher. For Washington the Gandhian dictum – means are as important as end result – is of no value. For it always ends matter. So it turned a blind eye to the Mush emergency plan.

Musharraf also was guided by his own survival instinct. What if the maverick judges led by Iftikhar Chaudhry declare his second election null and void? This threat perception drove him to the wall.

Again the United States, particularly President Bush junior was willing to offer his shoulder to the General. Then, his pressure on Musharraf for a course correction, Condoleezza Rice’s long distance calls to the General et al are a part of a script and screenplay written in Islamabad, London, Dubai and Washington. To gain some credibility and some respectability.

Benazir Bhutto too is a part of the script from the word go.

By agreeing to all the conditions Musharraf has prescribed for her return and by the way she had gone around circumventing the rule of law to save her skin and of her husband the Mr Five percent, the Oxford educated former Prime Minister has lost her sheen. Nawaz Sharif and the wily Gujrat Chaudhry brothers ( in their capacity -one as PML Q chief and the other as Punjab chief minister) were working overtime to marginalise Benazir and in the process Musharraf as well.

So Benazir is willing to go along as long as she gets some turf to fret and fume. To don the mantle of daughter of the East lest Imran Khan’s ex-wife dares to steal her thunder.

The November 9 show of force to thwart her rally in Islamabad, the blanketing the rally site with thousands of police, blocking roads to stop demonstrators, and barricading Benazir inside her residence in Islamabad offered a talking point to both sides. As TV cameras zoomed, Benazir attempted to leave in a white four-wheel drive car and found her way blocked by an armoured personnel car and a police bus. Late in the afternoon, however, she emerged from her house. Made a speech “listening to the voice of my conscience” and it was broadcast live on official Pakistani television.

What more tell-tale signs are needed to the strategies both sides have worked behind the scenes in order to give each side a face-saver.

Now about the all important questions: What will the army do? Will street protests subside?

These questions are important if only one gets carried away by the reports in the Western media, which are religiously picked up Indian press. The US is solidly behind Musharraf. He is in no danger of being ditched by his mentors and friends in the White House, State Department. The Pentagon has invested so much on Mush that it cannot think about life without him in the short to medium term.

Read Ann Scott Tyson’s Nov 9 despatch in the Washington Post to set at rest your doubts.

“The political turmoil in Pakistan is threatening to undermine a new long-term counter-insurgency plan by the U.S. military aimed at strengthening Pakistani forces fighting Islamic extremists in the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials. The officials said the initiative involves expanding the presence of U.S. Special Forces and other troops to train and advise the Pakistanis….Even as the Bush administration reviews aid to Pakistan in light of Gen. Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule last weekend, U.S. military officials are moving forward with the plan -- ordering equipment, surveying training facilities outside Islamabad, and preparing to send in dozens of additional military trainers, who are expected to begin arriving early next year”.

Benazir has made herself a part of the larger American plan. She did so by simply picking up anti-terrorism, anti-Islamist rhetoric. And also by promising to make AQ Khan, the father of Pak Muslim bomb, available for interrogation. One up on Musharraf? We will know soon.

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