Musharraf on a tightrope

ISLAMABAD -- The strategic importance of Pakistan is obvious, but it is not exactly a blessing on the land. In an interview here this week, President Pervez Musharraf said the country lies at the nexus of five world concerns: terrorism, democracy, human rights, narcotics, and nuclear nonproliferation.

He might have added the widening gap between Islam and the West.

In this planned government city of broad avenues and tight security, a gracious if sterile comity prevails. A Pakistani journalist told us the local joke is that Islamabad is half the size of Arlington National Cemetery and twice as dead. But nearby Rawalpindi teems with commerce: overladen burros; precarious, wildly painted minivans; young men with manual sewing machines doing on-the-spot tailoring; and old men in beards and long robes drinking tea. There are no women in sight. Banners hang everywhere -- right along with those cheering Pakistan in the cricket championships -- proclaiming (roughly translated by our guide): ''We are defenders of the Prophet Mohammed's respect and prestige, and if by doing this we are called terrorists, so be it." Or, more succinctly, ''Death to Denmark."

Their Muslim identity has profound meaning for many Pakistanis. The name of the country, after all, is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, home to 148 million Muslims, 97 percent of the population. At the entrance to the city, a giant lighted picture of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the father of the country born in bloody partition from India in 1947, is underlined with Pakistan's motto: ''Faith, Unity, Discipline." The muezzin's haunting and beautiful call to prayer punctuates the day five times. The direction of Mecca is carved into the hotel room wall.

An international group of journalists on a study tour of the region was told repeatedly that the list of Muslim grievances with the West is getting longer. There is a strike, boycott, or demonstration against the ''blasphemous cartoons" called nearly every day by nearly every sector, from trade unions to the Parliament to journalists' associations. The cartoons are merely the most convenient flashpoint. Government officials and opposition party leaders alike complained to us of rampant Islamophobia. They complained of a double standard applied to Iran's nuclear ambitions when North Korea is just as much of a threat. They complained that President Bush is spending five days in India on his visit to South Asia next month and not even an overnight in Pakistan. The sense of victimhood is strong.

The situation is not made any easier by a per capita income of less than $800 and a literacy rate of roughly 50 percent. The devastating earthquake in October actually served to ease some tensions by bringing the international community together in the relief effort, but the reconstruction challenge is huge, and refugee camps in Islamabad are in danger of becoming permanent.

In this volatile landscape Musharraf, a military general who seized power in 1999, walks a fine line. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he made the crucial decision to back the US war against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. Foreign investment from the United States followed, but the partnership with America is still unpopular in much of the country. For domestic consumption, Musharraf rails against the United States, condemning January's US drone attacks in the borderland area of Bajaur as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty, and calling the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed ''sad and pathetic."

But he is also keen to show the West that he is slowly restoring the institutions of democracy. He touts a free press, a vigorous civil society, and an increasingly vocal Parliament (assertions scoffed at by members of the press and opposition parties we spoke with). He is gingerly reforming the madrassas, or Islamic schools, and promoting free trade and even tourism. His aides say the only thing about him that is not democratic is the fact that he wears a uniform.

In advance of the Bush visit, Musharraf and his Cabinet said the United States has a responsibility to resolve the political disputes that prevent the Muslim world from prospering. Chief among these is Kashmir, the beautiful and beleaguered territory that India and Pakistan have fought over for decades. Musharraf said, ''I believe at the moment Kashmir is ripe for a resolution," but he didn't mention the best resolution: Kashmiris themselves deciding their fate in a free referendum that includes the option of independence. And with the United States binding itself more closely to India, it is unlikely Bush will take the Kashmiri bait.

Pakistan's is still a fairly new political system, so the roles of religion, civil society, the military, and local governments are still being worked out. But prodemocracy forces are getting impatient, and religious fervor is on the rise. Musharraf likes to call his strategy of bridging the Muslim world and the West ''enlightened moderation." But the metaphor of the earthquake -- an unstable land of fault lines bracing for aftershocks -- is the more appropriate description.

RENÉE LOTH