The general in his labyrinth In the past year, Musharraf (above) has made an on-off effort to curb religious extremism

One of the several mantras spawned by 9/11 was that the world had changed forever. In most respects, that was a gross exaggeration. But not in the Pakistani context: the world of General Pervez Musharraf would, indeed, never be the same again. He must have realised immediately that he and his nation couldn't be excluded from the extraordinary repercussions. Although none of the terrorists implicated in the attack was from Pakistan, the Afghan connection was obvious. And Pakistan was more closely associated with the Taliban than any other nation.

During the past year, Pakistan has played a crucial role in what the US describes as a war against terror. In the process, it has reverted in many ways to its one-time status as an American satellite. And, of late, Washington has been disinclined to criticise Musharraf's plan for a return to "democracy", under which elected politicians will serve at the army's pleasure.

The scenario rings a bell. A military dictator considers himself "elected" President on the basis of an ersatz referendum. To improve his legitimacy rating, he schedules elections after decreeing constitutional amendments intended to guarantee a weak and ineffective parliament. It could be 1984-not so much in the Orwellian sense as in terms of reflecting what has been attempted before, under a previous khaki-clad helmsman. With disastrous results.

Point blank A suicide bomb attack in front of the US Consulate in Karachi killed eight people in June this year

The ISI chief was sent to negotiate bin Laden's surrender. He ended up advising the Afghans to fight the US.

However, a range of parallels notwithstanding, Musharraf is no Zia-ul-Haq. Zia's coup in July 1977 bore the CIA's stamp of approval, and he sent Pakistan's first democratically chosen prime minister to the gallows. Musharraf became the first general in the world to organise a military takeover from the cockpit of a commercial airliner, and he appears to have done so without a nod from Washington. Furthermore, despite being sentenced to die, Nawaz Sharif won a reprieve following Riyadh's intervention on his behalf, and was sent into exile; presumably he is not among those who would consider being confined to Saudi Arabia a fate worse than death.

Zia's quest for legitimacy led him to embroil Pakistan in the Afghan civil war in the late 1970s. Musharraf's survival has, over the past year, become contingent upon disengaging from Afghan affairs. Zia lost no chance to exploit religion and strove to desecularise society. Musharraf faces the tougher task of stemming fundamentalism and tackling its deadlier symptoms, such as the jehadi mentality.

Even before George W. Bush emerged from his bunker to proclaim that, in the aftermath of the felling of the twin towers, anyone who refused to blindly pledge allegiance to the Stars and Stripes would automatically be considered an enemy-and even qualify as a target-Musharraf must have realised the scale of his dilemma. After all, though Pakistan could not be accused of harbouring Osama bin Laden, its relationship with the Taliban and its role in the genesis of the obscurantist militia were hardly likely to be glossed over.

When Bush popped the inevitable question-Are you with us or are you with the terrorists?-Musharraf knew he wouldn't be able to get away with a "don't know". The leader of a more confident, stable and self-respecting nation could at least have toyed with the idea of responding, "We are not with the terrorists, Mr President, and while the US has our sympathy, it should not take our unconditional support for granted in the event of military operations against Afghanistan." Musharraf never had that option.

He knew, of course, that his stance would encounter a degree of opposition within Pakistani society and, more alarmingly, inside the army. One would have expected him to have a reasonably good idea of the level of support among military officers for the Taliban in particular and jehadi ideology in general. But Musharraf was apparently in the dark about the intentions of ISI chief Lt-General Mehmood Ahmed, who was despatched to Kandahar ostensibly to negotiate the surrender of bin Laden with the Taliban leadership, but reportedly ended up advising the Afghans to fearlessly face off the Americans.

Musharraf consequently felt obliged to demote Ahmed, but the episode suggested that the President was either less than fully aware of what the ISI was up to, or he was being two-faced. A similar question arose not long afterwards in the context of Kashmir: was the infiltration of militants across the Line of Control taking place with the army chief's connivance or in defiance of his directives?

Musharraf's skills-and shortcomings-as a tightrope walker have been particularly evident in his relations with India. His broadly conciliatory stance and willingness to negotiate (earlier this year The Guardian in London was sufficiently impressed by his peacenik posture to contrast it with the belligerence of India's elected politicians) have been interrupted occasionally by more traditional intimations of ill-will. And though steps clearly have been taken to prevent would-be jehadis from entering Indian territory, rhetorical support for the Kashmiri "struggle" has simultaneously been maintained. But this may have little to do with Musharraf's true feelings. No Pakistani leader perceived as having betrayed the Kashmiri "cause" can hope to survive for long.

At the same time, notwithstanding his role in the Kargil misadventure, Musharraf knows a war would be a bigger disaster for Pakistan than for India. This knowledge has made him wary of attempts to instigate a conflict: the attack on Parliament in Delhi could be interpreted as such, and it is fairly likely that some of the subsequent atrocities in Kashmir have been similarly motivated. Judging by the sporadic warmongering of the BJP's leading lights, it would seem that the militants came extremely close to succeeding in their nefarious purpose.

Regardless of whether he was guided primarily by fear or by common sense, Musharraf deserves credit for keeping his cool. As a "valued ally" of the US, he also knew that it would be keen to forestall the outbreak of hostilities, not least because of the presence of US forces on Pakistani soil. But there was cause for concern in that Messrs Vajpayee, Advani and Fernandes had taken to echoing the White House's anti-terrorism gospel-and arrogating by implication the right to deal with Pakistan the way the US had tackled Afghanistan. In fact, India became the first country in the region to offer the use of its territory for US military bases, perhaps hoping that the ensuing partnership would not only take care of the Taliban but also deal a death blow to Kashmiri militancy-indigenous as well as imported.

There must have been dour expressions in Delhi when the US politely declined the invitation; but it could hardly have discounted Indian complaints without appearing blatantly hypocritical. So Pakistan was ordered to put an end to infiltration, while India was counselled to exercise restraint. Talk of war has dissipated in recent months. But tensions and levels of distrust remain high, and Delhi's reluctance even to enter into a dialogue suggests that the foreseeable future will prove hard to distinguish from the recent past.

Drastic changes in the domestic sphere are also unlikely in the short run, despite the polls scheduled for October, given that Musharraf has tampered with the Constitution to give himself absolute control over elected representatives. He has also gone back on a promise to allow his constitutional amendments to be tested in the new parliament. The National Security Council, expected to be the nation's ultimate repository of power, effectively guarantees the army a permanent determining role.

It is worth remembering, however, that even with the narrowest of electoral openings, democracy is capable of acquiring a momentum that military men find hard to cope with or understand. Although experience dictates that most Pakistani politicians are motivated mainly by the prospect of self-enrichment and tend to be innovative only in discovering novel avenues to achieve the objective (which makes it difficult to get worked up about the discrimination against Benazir Bhutto and Sharif), the way out of this conundrum does not lie in representative rule regularly being interrupted by uniformed despots.

Musharraf's rule has been marked by a few redeeming features, notably an effort in the past year to curb fundamentalism. But it is increasingly obvious most Pakistanis are indifferent to the value attached to him by Washington.

Given the role aircraft have played in determining the course of Pakistan's affairs-Zia made his grand exit on a C-130; Musharraf staged his grand entrance on a PIA flight from Colombo; the use of Boeings by Mohammed Atta and his miserable cohorts threw the region into chaos-the apposite question in this context may not be "What lies ahead?" but rather, "When's the next flight?"

(The author is a Pakistani journalist who works for The Australian in Sydney.)