Nearly five years ago, as the reign of Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf was nearing its end, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif stood before a crowd of tens of thousands of supporters in Islamabad and thundered, "Is hanging only for politicians?" Then he added, for emphasis, ''These blood-sucking dictators must be held accountable!'' The crowd responded with a boisterous chant of "Hang him! Hang him! Hang him!"
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At the time, Sharif's hostility toward Musharraf was one of the main reasons then-U.S. President George W. Bush's administration worried about the former prime minister's political resurgence. Would Sharif be content to settle scores only with Musharraf, the man, or would he extend his vengeance to Musharraf's military and its American backers as well? As it turned out, those questions went unanswered; Sharif's political power was eclipsed by the Pakistan People's Party led by Asif Ali Zardari, soon to be president, and Musharraf resigned from office and slipped out of the country before a legal noose could tighten around his neck.
That was then. Today, Musharraf lives under house arrest in his heavily fortified villa on the outskirts of Islamabad and faces multiple looming court cases that could result in treason charges, including for abetting the murder of political enemies, suspending the constitution and declaring a state of emergency, and illegally detaining judges. Whatever deluded political strategy led the general to return to Pakistan from exile in London and seek elected office has now been replaced by the same sort of cigar smoking and false bravado that too often characterized his time in power. On Tuesday, Pakistani guards found a car bomb apparently rigged to blow up Musharraf's convoy near his home. Musharraf is in deep trouble.
As everyone tried to warn him before he returned in March, Musharraf's time in Pakistani politics has passed. Now he is a threat to himself. But is he also a threat to Pakistan's political stability? To the U.S.-Pakistan relationship?
It is possible to see in Musharraf's sad fate "a milestone in Pakistan's fledgling democracy," as India scholar Sadanand Dhume put it. His arrest does demonstrate the newfound strength of the civilians, a healthy development for Pakistan's political culture that has for far too long been dominated by the generals.
But Pakistan's military was already humbled in 2007 when the lawyers first stood up to Musharraf's sacking of the Supreme Court's Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and again in 2008 when the general was forced from office. Over the past five years, the political stature of the generals has taken other serious hits, above all the one immediately after America's raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, which exposed Pakistan's top brass to unprecedented public criticism.
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