musharraf-bhutto deal:
Rather the status of Bhutto- Musharraf "deal that is no deal" is like the liberated Chinese woman described by Mao Tse- tung: "She doesn't exist. But she is beginning to want to exist".
(...) The deal's terms exist, according to sources. They are that Musharraf would be re- elected Pakistan's president for another five years by the present national and provincial assembles later this year. Bhutto would return to Pakistan, with the corruption cases against her and her family dropped. Free and fair general elections would he held, "uninfluenced" by Pakistan's ubiquitous intelligence agencies. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would form the next government, in coalition with Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q).
(...) For Musharraf, the compulsion is strategic and tactical. Strategically, say sources, he has realised the Pakistan army's historical alliance with the Islamists is untenable in the post 9/11 world, especially given the army's financial and political dependence on Washington. Coaxed by the Americans, he is therefore seeking another political constituency that would widen his legitimacy at home and license his pro-American policies abroad. The PPP is the perfect partner -- it is opposed to the Taliban, supports Musharraf's crackdown on Al-Qaeda and has applauded the peace process with India.
[two fronts of crisis:]
(...) The first is the ferocious political backlash caused by his decision to suspend Pakistan's chief justice, Iftikar Mohamed Chaudhry, on 9 March. The fall-out has not only meant gathering protests in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. It has united all shades of the Pakistan opposition around the twin demands of Chaudhry's reinstatement and Musharraf's resignation. "Musharraf has never been weaker than he is today," says analyst Hassan Askari Rizvi.
(...) The second is what Bhutto calls the "creeping Talibanisation" of Pakistan. In the last six months pro-Taliban Islamists have spread their retrograde brand of rule from the tribal areas next to Afghanistan to Peshawar to, in places, Islamabad. The latest taste of their lash was on 28 April, when a suicide bomber exploded next to Pakistan interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, at a public meeting in Charsadda, near Peshawar. Sherpao escaped with perforated eardrums. But 33 others were murdered. It was the eighth suicide attack in Pakistan this year, all aimed at ministers, the army, police and hotels and airports frequented by foreigners -- the very emblems of Musharraf's pro-Western military government.