The White House invitation to Bhutto's political ally Gilani, therefore, represents a new mindset. Nevertheless, Musharraf's hanging on as president represents a useless anachronism. The Nation, a conservative Pakistani newspaper, last Thursday asserted: "The country badly needs a head of state, who devotes full time to the improvement of the situation in (the tribal areas,) instead of spending time in palace intrigues." The News, a liberal newspaper, on the same day derided Musharraf's self-styled "enlightened moderation," asserting that "even as the U.S. declared him a key ally against terror, militancy grew everywhere."
That same News editorial complained "no one is ready to defend" the city of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan "against a possible onslaught by the militant militias that stand ranged all around it." But the joint U.S.-Pakistan military attack last week in the Khyber tribal area saved the historic town. That contradicted claims by Musharraf, his generals and friends in the U.S. government that an elected civilian regime would be slackers in the war against terror.
On the contrary, as Bhutto predicted to me last year, the civilian government is focusing the country's army against Islamist militants instead of archrival India. Only recently, when an unmanned Predator aircraft had a terrorist target in its sights, the Pakistani military refused to pull the trigger. Now, more raids in lawless tribal regions are planned. While the country's generals previously concentrated U.S. aid on conventional armaments to prepare for war with India, money from Washington now flows into counter-guerilla activities.
Pakistani opposition to the army's rule was not just a utopian desire for democracy or even fear that their country would become a large, nuclear-armed replica of Myanmar, ruled by a hereditary caste of ignorant, intransigent officers. The real problem with the military dictatorship, obsessed over the Indian menace, was its lack of interest about George W. Bush's war of terror. When he sits down to lunch with Prime Minister Gilani July 28, the president should remember that his friend Musharraf in 2006 cut a deal with tribal leaders providing sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.