Musharraf

'œThe food was good,' said The Economist, 'œbut not the mood.' Over a tension-filled dinner of soup, spicy sea bass, and pumpkin cake, President Bush did his best last week to make peace between two of his most fractious allies in the war on terror, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Pervez Mush­arraf of Pakistan. Each leader insists that the other is continuing to harbor al Qaida terrorists—including the most wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden. Karzai says that Musharraf is 'œkeeping and training snakes'; Musharraf, in turn, calls Karzai 'œan ostrich' who's ignoring extremism and tribal feuding in his own country. It will take more than dinner to fix this dysfunctional relationship, said Michael Abramowitz in The Washington Post. Glumly flanking Bush at a press conference, the two men avoided shaking hands, and wouldn't even look at the other. As one White House official observed, 'œThey really get under each other's skin.'

It's Musharraf who's mostly to blame here, said Christian Lowe in The Weekly Standard. Ask any American or NATO military commander in Afghanistan 'œwhere the threats are coming from, and he'll tell you they're from the tribal areas of Pakistan.' Musharraf recently declared those areas off-limits to U.S. and Pakistani troops, giving bin Laden and his cohorts safe haven. It's inexcusable for Bush to treat this phony like an indispensable ally, said Robert Pollock in The Wall Street Journal. On this trip to the U.S., Musharraf openly criticized the invasion of Iraq and Bush's war on terrorism. Having taken power in an illegitimate coup, he runs Pakistan as a military dictatorship. By indulging Musharraf, Bush has made a mockery of his own policies. What happened to promoting democracy and standing up to any nation that harbors terrorists?

Musharraf may be a flawed ally, said Peter Brookes in the New York Post, but we have no choice but to support him. Though he may not have made it easy to find bin Laden, he's been helpful in the larger fight against al Qaida, with his troops 'œkilling or capturing nearly 700' of its fanatics since 9/11. But Musharraf is in a serious bind. If he presses too hard against Taliban hiding in the tribal regions, he'll enrage Islamic hard-liners and risk a coup—and put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the hands of al Qaida. That's why we have no choice but 'œto hold our nose,' and treat the good general like a valued friend. 'œFact is, in war, sometimes the only bad ally is the ally you don't have.'

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