KEY POINTS:
Washington is scrambling to retrieve its shattered Pakistan policy following Benazir Bhutto's assassination, President Pervez Musharraf's political isolation and the Taleban's resurgence in Afghanistan.
The Bush Administration's hopes that the new Parliament - dominated by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) - would work in harmony with President Musharraf were dashed when they pledged instead to dilute his powers and possibly remove him.
The White House considers Musharraf a key ally in America's war on terror and the Pentagon continues to co-ordinate with him on counterterrorism measures aimed at stopping cross-border incursions into Afghanistan by pro-Taleban and al Qaeda militants operating out of Pakistan.
People's Party leader and widower of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, and PML-N head and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, announced last week that their coalition government would reinstate the judges fired by the President last November, a move that puts Musharraf at risk of being removed if the restored judges decide to reopen petitions challenging his October re-election as President, when he was also Army chief.
The Bush Administration first promoted a rapprochement between Musharraf and Bhutto in the run-up to the election in the hope that Bhutto would emerge as Prime Minister and restore political stability to Pakistan. With her mass support, Bhutto was expected to lend legitimacy to Musharraf's unpopular presidency. But the power-sharing deal collapsed and Musharraf imposed emergency rule, suspended the Constitution and dismissed the Supreme Court.
Following Bhutto's slaying, a new policy took shape, with the President, the Prime Minister and the new Army chief forming a triumvirate working in tandem to implement the Bush Administration's counterterrorism strategy, aimed at keeping Afghan President Hamid Karzai's regime on its feet.
This power-sharing plan too fell apart after Musharraf's party, the PML-Q, was routed in the poll and the President emerged weakened and beleaguered.
With Zardari and Sharif zeroing in on Musharraf, Washington is left with little leverage in Pakistan. But despite his plummeting popularity, the Bush Administration appears not to have given up on Musharraf. It does not seem open to a new policy direction that would move it towards building institutional ties with Pakistan, hoping instead that a democratically elected Parliament would share power with Musharraf.
But the counterterrorism programme shouldered by Musharraf since 9/11 suffered a setback after his government signed peace deals with tribal leaders, which Washington saw as a sellout.
The Miramshah agreement signed with North Waziristan tribal leaders in September last year, under which Pakistani troops pulled out in exchange for a pledge that cross-border incursions would stop, relieved pressure on the Army but ceded power to the militants. Musharraf's security policy for his border areas was harming Western coalition interests in Afghanistan and undermining Karzai's government there. The Bush Administration also drew criticism from the US Congress for the US$10 billion ($12.3 billion) funnelled to Pakistan. For the past six years it has convinced Congress that what has kept Pakistan from getting on top of the problem of cross-border terrorism was its lack of capabilities. This ensured an unbroken flow of military and financial aid.
Now the Democrat-controlled Congress has realised that throwing money at the problem has not produced results. Taleban and al Qaeda militants continue to enjoy a safe haven in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, using them as a launching pad for attacks on Nato and US troops in Afghanistan.
Washington has long suspected that Musharraf has been pursuing a policy of cracking down on al Qaeda but turning a blind eye to the Taleban. The United States sees Pakistan's reluctance to act decisively against the Taleban as part of Islamabad's long-term strategy of using the insurgency to keep India from filling the power vacuum that would arise in Afghanistan if Karzai's government is toppled.
Hawks in the Bush Administration favour sending troops to Pakistan, and the Bush Administration is seeking consent for a low-profile military presence on Pakistani soil.
US foreign policy is at the crossroads. Washington pushed for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. But the end of the military's rule is not the end of its role. Counterterrorism remains the cornerstone of Western policy in Pakistan. Washington knows Musharraf must stay in the picture, for as long as the Army will let him.
* Venu Menon is an Auckland journalist.
