Pakistan has moved from being an international 'basket case' to 'frontline state' in just a month. The change has been stunningly quick. For two years, Musharraf was hectored by the West for Pakistan's lack of democracy. Since 11 September, no one has talked about democracy. They just want a reliable friend and it appears they have one now. But these are not happy days for Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf. Though his dramatic U-turn on most long-standing foreign and domestic policies of Pakistan makes him as popular abroad as Mikhail Gorbachev came to be, he is also turning out to be as unpopular at home as the last Soviet leader was. The world that derided him for toppling an elected government is now desperate for him to be firmly in the saddle but the man who seized power two years ago to domestic acclaim now sees his effigy burnt in the streets. The self-appointed president who favoured the Taliban and spoke some weeks ago of the strategic depth of 2,300 km that they provided his armed forces has not only had to turn his back on the Muslim neighbour but was also compelled to say that his gem about strategic depth is "an old theory".
After mollycoddling religious extremists for two years, he has come down hard on them for protesting against his surrender to Western allies who had shunned Pakistan till now. Musharraf's supporters, however, have chosen to see in this development signs of promise, claiming that the fast pace of events has given him the leverage to curb extremists at home. It is certainly true that he has started to reign in groups and leaders who hope Pakistan will disregard the West and create an Islamic alliance that stretches from Saudi Arabia into Central Asia.
So far he has got away unscathed in the struggle to neutralise his extremist opponents. On the night the US strikes on Afghanistan began, he removed three key proTaliban generals known for their hardline religious views, among them the hawkish and powerful intelligence chief. But prevailing circumstances cannot permit him or his supporters to take too sanguine a view of the future, particularly since the trajectory of Pakistan's domestic politics is likely to be influenced, if not actually deter mined, by what the West chooses to do in Afghanistan. The signals, however, are not too promising. For one, Washington's claim that the ongoing war on Afghanistan is directed at terrorists and not Muslims finds few takers in Pakistan. Even Muslims with liberal political views believe that the repeated pounding of a prostrate Afghanistan can only strengthen the Taliban rulers and their Pakistani supporters, while eroding sympathy for the US.
Musharraf's discomfiture with the US attacks on neighbouring Afghanistan is apparent but so is his eagerness for better relations with the West at a time when hard pressed Pakistan can use wealthy friends. Musharraf may be determined to hold back the extremists but the longer the US pounds Afghanistan with Islamabad's backing and the more civilian casualties are reported, the more difficult it will become for his security forces to restrain the fundamentalists. Musharraf realises this, which is why he has been pressing for an end to hostilities before the onset of the Muslim month of fasting-Ramzan-which begins mid-November. The crucial question is whether he can rally Pakistanis behind him if and when events get out of hand. Or will he lose out to fundamentalism?