Miscalculations.(The Talk of the Town)(General Pervez Musharraf)

In his autobiography, "In the Line of Fire," published last year, the Pakistani military leader, General Pervez Musharraf, describes himself as a once talented college athlete. His achievements attracted a particular compliment that lingered long in his mind:

I was fourth in cross-country, was the top gymnast, and was third in the "Mr. FC College" bodybuilding competition. . . . Muhammad Iqbal Butt, who had competed creditably in the Mr. Universe competition, told me at the time that I had a most muscular physique.

Yet Musharraf did not always feel a need to display his prowess. As a boy, he had a brown dog called Whiskey, who taught him life lessons:

I prefer small dogs, though, not the huge ones. This surprises my friends, for they expect a commando to have something like a rottweiler. I think people who keep rottweilers, and similar dogs, have a need to cultivate a macho image.

Musharraf, whose military career includes seven years in the Pakistani Special Forces, is a compact man of medium height who wears rimless glasses and parts his hair unfashionably down the middle; in person, speaking in fluent English, he can come across as more than a little self-regarding. His father was a middle-class auditor in government service, and his mother had high ambitions for her sons. One became a doctor, and, eight years ago, Pervez seized control of his nuclear-armed country.

The Army has ruled Pakistan directly for more than half the country's existence. It is by far Pakistan's most important institution--a source of cohesion and national identity, but also of dissonance, internal violence, inequality, and constitutional failure. As the Army's chief for almost a decade, Musharraf has held the confidence--or, at least, the obedience--of his fellow-generals, and of the more credulous Bush Administration. The General is a secular and liberal-minded individual, and he has certainly acted bravely at times in his attempts to combat Islamic extremists, but he has also proved to be a remarkably poor politician and domestic strategist.

Pakistan is gripped by two overlapping crises. The more visible one is the struggle between Musharraf, the judiciary, and the civilian politicians over elections and power sharing--an uncompromising contest among compromised leaders that two weeks ago culminated in a state of emergency, followed by an Army-led crackdown on human-rights activists, the independent media, and political organizers. It is sustained in part by the competition between two forces: the military, a broadly based, middle-class, undemocratic institution; and the People's Party, a broadly based, somewhat poorer, undemocratic institution (it has never held internal elections). The People's Party began as a rural socialist movement, led by Benazir Bhutto's father, who was hanged by the Army, and it has led national governments three times; when Bhutto returned to Pakistan from exile last month, her followers poured into Karachi to show that they can still rule the streets. The struggle between the Party and the Army, however, is not likely to produce a major transformation--the house arrests, tear-gas clouds, and baton charges are only the latest episode in the national narrative of political dysfunction.