Some in U.S. Intelligence See Musharraf on His Way Out

By Spencer Ackerman - June 11, 2007, 7:15 PM

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S.'s Pakistan policy can be summed up in two words: Pervez Musharraf. But within the U.S. intelligence community, and in Pakistan, there's a growing belief that the U.S.-friendly military dictator's days are drawing to a close -- and possibly within the next few months. It may be time for the U.S. to face what it's long feared in the nuclear state: the prospect of chaos, rising Islamism or anti-Americanism that follows Musharraf.

But the hope -- among Pakistani military officers and politicians, to say nothing of U.S. diplomats -- is that the increasingly inept and unpopular Musharraf can be eased out of power while the U.S. slowly distances itself from him, allowing for as smooth a transition as is possible in the turbulent South Asian country. Some see the Pakistani Army remaining powerful enough to prevent a chaotic transition or an Islamist takeover. "This is going to be a Pinochet-like transition, instead of a Marcos-like one," one former Pakistani official tells TPMmuckraker. In other words, according to the ex-official, the U.S. may not stand foursquare behind its ally Musharraf until he's ultimately forced from power, as President Ronald Reagan chose with doomed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.