US let democracy wither in Pakistan, experts say

President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler whose support is critical to the US pursuit of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, is enduring the most intense opposition since he seized power in a 1999 coup.

But analysts argue that having sunk billions of dollars into Musharraf's regime, US President George W. Bush's administration is an onlooker amid deadly unrest in Pakistan, which is also locked in nuclear-fueled tensions with India.

Musharraf's removal in March of Pakistan's independent-minded chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has triggered weeks of protests. Violence in Karachi just over a week ago left at least 40 people dead.

The US State Department expressed its "deep concern" over Chaudhry's dismissal but has confined subsequent remarks to appealing for Pakistan's internal judicial process to be respected.

There is also anger in Pakistan over Musharraf's failure to quit his other post of army chief, and his refusal to allow exiled former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto to return ahead of elections due by early 2008.

Speaking from his London home to The Times newspaper, Sharif said last week that Musharraf was a "gone man" and added that he felt "personally let down" by Bush, who is "alienating 160 million Pakistanis" in favor of Musharraf.

Both Sharif and Bhutto stand accused of rampant corruption and misrule, but Asia Foundation expert Hamid Sharif said they are still the leading lights of mainstream democracy as opposed to Islamic radicalism in Pakistan.

"US foreign policy, its security concerns, trump everything else in Pakistan, including democracy. I think that's extremely worrying if the US really wants to see a moderate, secular Pakistan emerge," he said.

The Pakistani public has "a huge trust deficit" with the US government, he said, calling on Washington to broker a deal that allows for free and fair elections and safeguards for an independent judiciary.

"Official US statements are clearly intended to do no harm to Musharraf," commented Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence analyst on Pakistan who is now at Washington's Middle East Institute.

"The danger is that by doing him no harm, the US may well find its interests are damaged when and if he goes," he added, saying that Washington has no "plan B" for life without Musharraf.

"I don't think Pakistan can do without the US. It doesn't have other options. And the US can't do without Pakistan, given the consequences for Afghanistan, for nuclear command and control, for dangers with India."

At the same time, however, some in Washington are questioning the utility of US support for Musharraf, who became a pivotal ally after the September 11 attacks nearly six years ago by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Since then, Pakistan has received roughly 10 billion dollars in US funding including for counter-terrorism operations along its border with Afghanistan, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Critics say that with bin Laden still at large and the Taliban now resurgent, the US largesse has been wasted.

The New York Times said Sunday the payments continue even though Musharraf had decided eight months ago to slash patrols through the lawless border area where Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are most active.