Pakistan’s Leader Faces Increasing Political Challenges

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 14 — Nearly five years after Sept. 11 turned Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, into one of Washington’s most indispensable allies, he finds himself squeezed from many directions, leading to one of the most serious political binds of his nearly seven-year tenure.

His two main political foes, who undermined each other for years, are linking arms in an effort to restore civilian rule. Some erstwhile allies on the religious right, emboldened by spreading rage against General Musharraf’s pro-American stance, have stepped up their criticism.

Corruption scandals have dogged some of his partners, including the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, who faces a no-confidence motion in Parliament next week. Inflation has increased. An ethnic insurgency in Baluchistan refuses to subside; Pakistan attributes it to unfriendly neighbors.

No one doubts that the president, who is also the army chief of staff, remains the most powerful man in Pakistan and enjoys the backing of the United States. “He still makes the political weather,” as one Western diplomat put it. But there are signs of weakness.

Last month a letter signed by a group of retired generals and government officials, including those who once worked with him, called for “the military’s disengagement from political power,” urging General Musharraf to shed his military uniform if he was to remain president.

In Washington there are also simmering concerns. A series of planned terrorist attacks with links to Pakistan as well as a sharp rise in crossborder Taliban attacks in Afghanistan have prompted renewed debate within the Defense Department about Pakistan, according to two people involved who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

They said that in particular, the sharply rising American casualty rate in Afghanistan had increased skepticism among some American military officers about the Pakistani intelligence service’s efforts to rein in the Taliban.

“There is an increasing view in the United States that Pakistan isn’t very helpful,” said one researcher involved in the debate, referring to frustration among some officers. “There are people who are really thinking twice about this relationship with Pakistan.”

At home, General Musharraf has been criticized for having little to show for his overtures toward India. Likewise, his post-Sept. 11 assault on suspected militants taking shelter in the tribal areas along the Afghan border, done at the behest of the Bush administration, has resulted in the capture of a number of leaders of Al Qaeda but also the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani troops and a mounting rage in the tribal areas.

At the same time, Afghanistan and India have been nipping at the general’s heels for not doing enough to crack down on militants who they say export violence to their respective countries. Religious radical groups continue to operate here, including those that have links with banned terrorist outfits.

They continue to be implicated in investigations of terrorism suspects half a world away, most recently the group Jamaat ud Dawa in the London airplane bombing plot. Even General Musharraf’s promise to reform radical madrasas, as Islamic religious schools are called, has yet to be fulfilled.

“There are new domestic eruptions, and he hasn’t yet drenched the fires on the foreign policy front,” said Najam Sethi, editor of The Daily Times in Lahore.

A Western diplomat here in Pakistan said, “Musharraf is in a weaker position than he has been in the past, no doubt about it.” The diplomat, who could not be identified by name because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the politics of this country, added, “There are constraints on him.”

But in Washington the official view remains strongly supportive. Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, credited General Musharraf with having kept his promise to “break” with the Taliban and their Qaeda allies.

Although the Taliban have reorganized inside Pakistan, Mr. Boucher said, General Musharraf’s government is trying to gain control of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

“They’ve closed some camps; they’ve outlawed some groups,” he said in an interview. “You have to understand how deeply rooted extremism is in Pakistan.” Of the general’s cooperation with Washington, he added: “I think we’ve seen plenty. We certainly work with Musharraf.”

The coming months pose a big question mark. With elections expected before the end of next year, there is a concern among friends and critics alike: Will domestic politics further compromise his ability to drive through promised reforms?

For the sake of staying in power, political observers say, he must broaden his support. If he broadens it in favor of the right, his ability to crack down on religious extremists will be further compromised.

If he broadens in favor of the political left, he will be more able to carry out his promise to crack down on extremism, but will then have to embrace a political nemesis: Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, who lives in exile, having been convicted of corruption. She has signed a pact with Nawaz Sharif, the other main opposition party leader, also in exile, and his Pakistan Muslim League.

“He is getting increasingly isolated and cornered,” Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, now retired from the army and one of the signers of the letter, said of General Musharraf. “There is a genuine urge and demand in the country to revert to democracy and give a fair deal to all the parties.”

For his part, the president presented a lengthy defense of his record in a speech to the nation in late July — one that also revealed the breadth of his troubles. Addressing inflation, he announced that government shops would sell basic staples to the poor at controlled prices.

He said the domestic budget had more than doubled during his nearly seven-year tenure, he outlined a development plan for restive Baluchistan, and he rattled off how many tractors and motorcycles were being produced in the country. The economy has grown at an annual clip of 7 percent over the last three years.

He criticized India and Afghanistan for suggesting that his efforts to tackle terrorist groups were less than robust. And on the subject of religious radicals, he urged mosques to refrain from using loudspeakers, demanded that “hate material” not be circulated and urged government officials to “look at the problem and take it seriously.”

It was remarkably similar to, though far more tepid than, wish lists he has presented before.

General Musharraf’s promise of madrasa reform fell under renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of the London subway and bus bombings in July 2005. At the time, he promised to expel foreigners studying in Pakistani madrasas and he ordered his government to register all of the madrasas by the end of last year.

Resistance was swift, especially from the coalition of Islamic religious parties. The government has not persuaded all madrasas to register. It has allowed foreign students to remain, so long as they have permission from their home governments. Enforcement is daunting.

Even his fiercest critics acknowledge that some of his troubles are the doings of others. For instance, they say, India’s recalcitrance at his Kashmir proposals — principally his offer to soften the so-called Line of Control that divides the territory between the countries — has weakened his credibility at home.

Except for the release of prisoners and opening of transportation links, they argue, nearly every piece of the India-Pakistan peace agenda remains unresolved, from smaller territorial issues to the hardest nut of all: the fate of Kashmir.

“He has tried, he has failed, and the Indians share responsibility for that,” said one of the general’s most trenchant opposition critics, Aitzaz Ahsan of Ms. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.

Likewise, there are the tribal areas. No civilian government, Mr. Ahsan conceded, could have sent hundreds of Pakistani troops to face the Taliban — and die — in the hilly redoubts in the north, as General Musharraf did at American urging.

But his policy has helped to push the tribal regions further beyond the writ of the government and has not quieted the Taliban and their allies. The Pakistani government insists that it is trying its best to root out Taliban and that it is unfairly blamed for Afghanistan’s failure to expel them from inside its own borders.

There is another opinion: that five years after Sept. 11 and Washington’s weariness in Afghanistan, Pakistan has no interest in completely quelling the Taliban. It would not be in General Musharraf’s interest, the argument goes, to forever lose all political influence over Kabul.

“The Pakistanis saw their concessions as temporary,” argued Stephen P. Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “They have permanent interests in Afghanistan and are waiting for the U.S. to depart. Now that we are on our way out of Kabul, I can expect Islamabad to try to increase its support for its clients in Afghanistan.”

David Rohde contributed reporting from New York for this article.