Summary here and here.

As the tide shifts.

The latest scathing criticism of General Pervez Musharraf’s failure to reverse Pakistan’s legacy of militancy ought to shock the country’s ruling establishment into action towards tackling the problem.

But if the seven-year track record of the General is any indication, complacency and inaction are more likely to be the driving forces rather than tangible action, which begins by making a fundamental difference.

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Events in Pakistan have recently demonstrated that Musharraf’s government has failed to maintain its writ over the country. The government has also become increasingly prone to taking more and more ill-advised decisions, as illustrated by the recent suspension of the chief justice of the supreme court.

Musharraf’s tenure has seen the consistent and increasing marginalisation of the parliament and other political institutions. While the General insists he has overseen the arrival of a better quality democracy than what existed before his rule, the reality is that his tenure has only seen Pakistan’s political weakening.

There are no short cuts to political stability. There is only one, simple, tried and tested solution. The first step for Pakistan to improve its outlook must come through the country’s return to a more representative democratic rule. Article

Related:

The threat to Musharraf’s grip on power has rekindled fears in Washington whether a strategic relationship anchored in effect by one man in Pakistan is sustainable in the long run. “The US strategic partnership with Pakistan is in a troubled state,” said Marvin Weinbaum, a former US State Department expert on Pakistan. “It rests too heavily on the political survival of one man and a military rule facing formidable domestic challenges and declining legitimacy,” he said.

Washington’s preoccupation with counterterrorism since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States has in effect given Musharraf “a pass on satisfying us on the issues of democracy, nuclear proliferation and extremism,” Weinbaum said. President George W. Bush’s administration has ruled out any immediate threat of Musharraf being toppled, but the Democratic-controlled US Congress is not taking chances. “What we truly need in Pakistan is someone else to talk to,” said Democrat lawmaker Gary Ackerman, who heads a House of Representatives panel on South Asia.

“The administration seems content to only speak with president Musharraf and portrays him as the indispensable man. The truth is, for our goals to be achieved in Pakistan, there should be more than one phone number there to dial,” he said. … Article

Following up on a story mentioned here earlier this week:

Taleban militants on Friday freed the principal of a high school who was kidnapped four days ago for stopping the rebels recruiting his students, his family said.

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The release was negotiated by an eight-member council led by a local cleric, he said. Article

Noted FYI:

Maulana Abdul Aziz, the prayer leader at Lal Masjid and principal of Jamia Hafsa, on Friday gave the government a week’s deadline to “enforce Sharia” in the country, otherwise “clerics will Islamise society themselves”. “If the government does not impose Sharia within a week, we will do it,” Aziz told a gathering after Friday prayers.… Article