Gen. Musharraf is finally doing what President Putin did for Russia--stop democracy from turning into total chaos. Hopefully, he is also finally beginning to listen to what many of us have been telling him for many months now, that his original mandate was to impose tough political reforms and empower the Pakistanis so they begin to generate real leadership, and not prematurely hand the country over to a political elite that lacks real democratic credentials. And thirdly, by declaring emergency rule, President Musharraf has thrown cold water on Washington's plans for a regime change in Islamabad. Washington's handpicked future ruler of Pakistan, Mrs. Benazir Bhutto, hurriedly left Pakistan a couple of days earlier and returned on Saturday only to come out of the airport and find everything changed. And one of her most trusted aides, Mr. Rehman Malik, the man who was doing the actual negotiations with Islamabad on behalf of Mrs. Bhutto, virtually escaped from Pakistan only hours before the declaration of emergency. I can only imagine the top guns at the U.S. Department of State scratching their heads at how quickly the entire scenario has changed in Pakistan.
