In September Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister who was ousted by Musharraf in 1999, returned to Pakistan from exile. He planned to challenge Musharraf in the next elections. So much for that: Musharraf refused to let Sharif leave the airport. Next, Sharif was served with a warrant charging official corruption. Soon, he was hustled aboard a plane out of the country and into continuing exile. His triumphant return lasted but a few hours.

Bhutto's return was better planned. She had support in the country but even more support from international leaders. With Bhutto in the country, creating tense political kabuki theater, Musharraf was pushed into a corner. He acted. On November 3, Musharraf suspended the constitution and declared a state of emergency. Justice Chaudhry reacted by convening an eight-member court which declared Musharraf?s action illegal and, therefore, null and void. Chaudhry and the other seven Supreme Court justices were arrested.

The judiciary is seldom an opposition force. Judges and lawyers are quintessential members of the establishment. But if you abolish their courts, what have they got?

Another factor comes into play: The large opposition parties have been ineffective and have suffered from weak leadership. The leaders of the major opposition parties style themselves as fighters for democracy against dictatorship, but their records during a decade of volatile civilian rule (1988-1999) were spotty. They were dogged by allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Those allegations sapped their support except among their hardcore followers. The weak political parties were soon co-opted by the dominant military. The opposition remained divided, lacking popular support. Political scientist Rasul Bakhsh Rais says, ?Today political parties are quite disorganized and have single dominant leaders, so they have become little oligarchies of the elite. They do not have roots in society.?

Stable but threatened

The legal community, by contrast, has a strong organizational structure with associations in every district of the country and its own source of income. It is stable and now Musharraf has threatened it.

Musharraf has walked a tightrope and has managed to do just enough to retain American support but not enough to get rid of the Taliban or al Qaeda. Now, with the central government occupied in repelling lawyers at the barricades, Taliban forces have taken over in some areas. Girls? schools have been sacked. Captured regular army troops have been beheaded publicly. The terrorists are in control of larger and larger swatches of Pakistan. It is becoming hard to distinguish those Pakistani areas from Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Musharraf is a very crafty man. He is clever. He is a survivor. He is about as strong an ally as the U.S. can expect from a country such as Pakistan. He may believe that only his continued governance will keep Pakistan from going over to radical Islamists. He does believe that Chaudhry and others do not understand that only extreme measures can stop terrorists.

He may be right. Perhaps democracies have little defense against extremists, whether left or right. Democracies sometimes give their enemies the rights they need to mobilize and work to destroy the very democracies that protect them.

The United States appears to support Musharraf. He represents stability, if not justice. But the U.S. is giving advice and comfort to Bhutto. She is calculating, arbitrary and arrogant. She has done an excellent job gathering support from influential people all over the world. She did less well when she was prime minister. She may eventually represent chaos, but she appears to be the future leader of Pakistan.

Blood in the streets

Musharraf?s perilous situation should cause all of us to reflect. Should we support a military dictatorship or a twice-failed but charismatic politician who represents a party with many followers who want Europe and the U.S. out of Pakistan? One of these two will govern a country that has nuclear weapons, fractious ethnic divisions and unfriendly neighbors.