This is the $64,000 question that Kurtz reveals is surprisingly being ignored by the media:Granted, Musharraf’s emergency does replay a long-standing Pakistani pattern of anti-democratic military coups. And massive public opposition could, as before, prompt the military to (partially) restore democracy. Yet this well-practiced Pakistani pattern is now playing out in a decidedly novel environment. Pakistan’s government has never faced armed, independent, organized, and territorially based Islamist opposition on today’s scale. That is likely to give Pakistan’s recurring political history a radical new twist. In calmer circumstances, a stable democracy guided by a secular middle-class might have headed off the specter of Islamist radicalism. Today, however, given the size and strength of the Islamist threat, and given the unique social role of Pakistan’s army, a military government may be the only real bulwark against the potential disaster of a...(Read Full Post)