Should This Man Be Smiling?

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The 1964 edition of the rising Crescent, the yearbook of the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, a hill station north of Islamabad, is filled with nicknames and in-jokes. Graduating cadet Pervez Musharraf, then 20, is teased for his hearty appetite and preference for a center hair part. ("Has the habit of splitting hairs.") But the slim leather-bound volume is more than a collection of collegiate memories; it's also a testimonial to the camaraderie whipped up during two arduous years of grunt training in the foothills of the Himalayas. Musharraf's classmates concluded his entry: "A guy to be with, especially when in a fix."

Pakistan is in a fix now. No one knows that better than Musharraf. He is a veteran of tight squeezes: no leader in Asia, perhaps in the world, has survived the number and magnitude of political crises that he has in the past few years. In 1999, as army chief, he crossed the Line of Control in Kashmir by capturing the Kargil Heights. Then he steered his country in a risky U-turn after Sept. 11 that led him to accept America's invitation to break with Afghanistan's Taliban, overhaul his internal security forces and act as host for the war on terror. And this past May he clashed with India in a showdown that risked nuclear escalation; this time he curbed Pakistan's Kashmir insurgency in exchange for peace. Each time Musharraf has gambled, and so far his luck has held. "I was always a risk taker," he tells TIME from his perch in a gold-upholstered chair in the parlor of Army House, his Rawalpindi residence, surrounded by 18th century muskets and gilded sabers.

Musharraf knows that even more dangers lie ahead--for the U.S., Pakistan and, of course, the President. Just last week the Pakistani government announced it had foiled an assassination plot against Musharraf in April in Karachi that included a defector from Pakistan's paramilitary police force. Then, on Saturday, a group of armed men slaughtered 25 Hindus in a Kashmiri shantytown as they watched a Pakistan-India cricket match on TV. Indian police suspect a Pakistan-based Muslim militia. If so, the provocation would rank with the mass murder that sparked the May face-off. Now more than ever, the world is counting on Musharraf the risk taker--who assures us his risks are calculated--to steer South and Central Asia from internal chaos to regional security, from the threshold of nuclear Armageddon to Pax Pakistania, from fundamentalist fervor to secular moderation.

Musharraf is a natural charmer: hospitable and humorous, eager to share delicate samosas and sugary sweets from the kitchen of Army House, prepared to venture anywhere in a conversation--and compulsively eager to please. Do you want to meet his wife? Brother? Grandnephew? He will invite them in for a chat. Much of his public support since he seized power in October 1999 has been based on that ingratiating sincerity. Musharraf's speeches on television--the most memorable came last January, when he explained why he had to crack down on Islamic fundamentalism--tend to be emotional appeals to the people. A good percentage of the populace has responded to the aura of a military man who seems neither haughty nor overly intellectual.