Rumors Musharraf Will Impose Emergency

Rumors Musharraf will impose Emergency Laws in Pakistan
Islamabad blames Obama

Blogger acting up, affecting comments, archives. Should clear up soon. Sorry.

Rumors are flying in Pakistan that Gen. Pervez Musharraf may declare what amounts to martial law, responding to ‘external’ and ‘internal’ threats.

[Musharraf announced Thursday that he was not in fact going to declare an emergency. Some have speculated that he was posturing to get the Bush administration to back off pressuring him to crack down on fundamentalist Muslims in Pakistan.]

The Pakistani government is implying that the comments of US presidential candidate Barack Obama about bombing northern Pakistan to get at al-Qaeda are part of the impetus for the move, but that is self-serving.

Still, it won’t do Senator Obama’s campaign any good for him to be invoked as part of the reason for Pakistan moving away from democracy toward emergency rule. He should not have stuck to his guns on Sunday and subsequently; being able to fix a mistake gracefully is key to success in politics.

See also Manan Ahmed’s comments at our Global Affairs group blog.