The World's Toughest Job

(2 of 2)
Musharraf has done more in the past few weeks to set his mark on Pakistan than he managed during the previous two years. He often said he was catapulted to power by a quirk of fate. When his predecessor, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, tried to fire him as army chief, loyal cohorts arrested Sharif, and Musharraf declared himself the new chief executive. His first months in office were marked by contradiction and lack of vision. He required a personal loyalty oath from high court judges but spoke fondly of "consensus." His promises of economic revival and "true" democracy to replace his elected predecessor's "sham" democracy petered out.

And the secular-minded general—who is known to enjoy his pet dogs, regarded in Islam as unclean—failed to tame the religious extremists who had burrowed so deeply into the country's institutions. He repeatedly looked weak when he ran up against them. He caved in to Islamic protesters who opposed his plan to amend the country's draconian blasphemy law. His government rushed to appease a cleric with a heavy following among retired military men who threatened to storm Islamabad if Musharraf did not enforce Shari'a, Islamic law. He kept silent when mullahs in the Northwest Frontier instructed local men to forcibly marry—code for rape—women working for aid agencies.

Those days are over, the way Musharraf is talking now. In a speech just after the Sept. 11 attacks, Musharraf told the nation, "The lesson is that when there is a crisis situation, the path of wisdom is better than the path of emotion." In case that was too subtle, he said, speaking of the fundamentalists, "There is no reason why this minority should hold the majority as hostage." That is a sentiment no Pakistani leader in 20-odd years has dared articulate. Those who know Musharraf say he now acknowledges that Pakistan made a mistake in propping up the Taliban as an ally for so long. For the first time he explicitly condemned the attack in Srinagar as "terrorist" and followed up with a call to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee suggesting talks. Says political scientist Rifaat Hussain: "After Sept. 11, national interest is in, and ideology is out."

The drastic turnaround looks out of character for an affable career officer who never showed a great taste for confrontation. Musharraf was the second of three boys born to a career diplomat in India four years before its independence. When partition in 1947 separated mostly Hindu India from mostly Muslim Pakistan, the secular-minded Muslim family migrated to Karachi. Then a diplomatic posting took them to Turkey for six years, where Pervez learned fluent English and Turkish. Outgoing and fun, he attracted a broad circle of friends. He excelled at cricket and until recently loved a fast game of squash, and he gravitated toward a military career.

Once commissioned to an Elite artillery regiment in 1964, he began a steady rise through the ranks, fighting in two wars against India, until he earned a general's stars. In 1998 Prime Minister Sharif appointed him chief of staff, expecting a malleable seat warmer—only to find himself unseated by Musharraf a year later. After Sharif's conviction for hijacking in April 2000, the new military ruler showed a degree of mercy rare in such circumstances, sending Sharif and his family safely into exile in Saudi Arabia later that year.

Musharraf's battle to reshape Pakistan is a lonely one. No political party backs him: he has consistently poured scorn on the parties' established leaders. His anticorruption drive, his jailing of politicians for abuse of authority, his categorical statements that he wants to introduce a new political class at the expense of the old, have all alienated established politicos who see him only as a threat.

Now he counts on his new friends in the West. Washington hopes to keep him secure with money. Since Musharraf threw in his lot with the U.S., President Bush has won authority from Congress to remove sanctions imposed after Pakistan's 1998 nuclear test. Bush expects to get another waiver of additional sanctions that were slapped on after Musharraf's coup. A ban on military sales to Pakistan has been lifted, and a new agreement eases the immediate burden of $329 million in debt on which Pakistan had defaulted. Washington has pledged $50 million in aid, Japan has come up with $40 million, and the E.U. has matched that. Pakistanis remember, however, that Washington's largesse has proved fickle in the past, when their support was no longer a strategic asset.

Yet Western goodwill is at the core of the Pakistani President's great gamble. "I'm thinking of Musharraf very much in terms of Anwar Sadat 30 years ago," says a senior U.S. official, recalling the Egyptian President who first made peace with Israel. "That's both because of the boldness of what he's doing and because of the enormous risk he's taking. No doubt people are gunning for him." For Sadat, it didn't turn out well: he was killed in 1981 by Islamic militants now connected with the al-Qaeda network. These dangerous days Musharraf is no longer likely to show up, as he has in the past, with little fanfare at Islamabad restaurants to dine with his family. Already there is talk of fatwas, or religious orders, calling for Musharraf's death. The general has been put under heavy security, and his public appearances have been curtailed.

Last week Musharraf called on Washington to keep military operations against Afghanistan "short and targeted." He told Pakistanis he had "definite assurances" the visible part of the campaign, broadcast in night-lit explosions over Afghan cities, would end quickly, "in one or two days" if possible. While President Bush voiced sympathy for Musharraf's desire to calm protests, he denied that Pakistan received any such guarantees. "I don't know who told the Pakistani President that," Bush said. Allied spokesmen reiterated that the campaign could take weeks, even years. Other officials who have heard Musharraf's pleas that a long conflict could jeopardize his control say the Pakistani leader was voicing what he wanted to hear. Under the circumstances, no one could blame him for wanting his current trial over as quickly as possible.