Letters.

Hero or Reluctant Ally?

I thought your article "Pakistan's Striving Son" (Asia, Jan. 28) could not have been more appropriate. Despite 50 years of wretched and corrupt misrule by bigots and fascists--both elected and otherwise--the remaining half of the late M. L. Jinnah's Pakistan still shows some resilience. General Musharraf and his team are the first honest and courageous leaders that Pakistan has ever had in its history. Yes, democracy is missing, but so, too, are the rotting corruption and gutless compromise that have led us to the current morass. Let Pakistan work on literacy, poverty alleviation and freedom from misdirected theocracy; democracy can follow. There are many other "Islamic allies" that the West could look at to experiment with their ideals of democracy.

S. M. Salman

Karachi, Pakistan

"Pakistan's Striving Son," portraying Musharraf as a liberal reformist emulating Anwar Sadat or Kemal Ataturk, avoids explaining the abrupt U- turn in Musharraf's post-September 11 Afghan policy. The stark truth is, he had no choice: if he had continued to support the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, America would have bombed Pakistan along with Afghanistan. And Musharraf knew that in a crisis situation like this, China, Pakistan's trusted ally, would not come to his rescue since it, too, is plagued by Islamic separatism. He also knew that the combined might of the Islamic and Arab countries, even if available to him, was no match for America. To survive as head of state, a position he seized by staging a coup, forsaking the Taliban was a Hobson's choice for him. It was not, as he claimed, a calculated move based on Napoleon's view of the decision-making process. Interestingly, in his address to the Pakistani nation he unwittingly mentioned that Kashmir is "in our [Pakistan's] blood." This shows that he has to keep alive the Kashmir dispute for the very existence of Pakistan. It only validates George Orwell's theory that the presence of an enemy at the border, real or imaginary, is necessary to sustain a totalitarian state.

Sharad C. Misra

Mumbai, India