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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's decision to fire 60 judges last November helped set in motion the political crisis that led to his party's electoral defeat. But since its February victory, Pakistan's ruling coalition has failed to live up to its campaign promise to reinstate the judges -- to the relief of Musharraf, whose reelection might be declared illegal if the old Supreme Court were to return.

Today, a breakthrough was finally made as coalition leaders Nawaz Sharif, of the Pakistani Muslim League-N, and Pakistan People's Party leader (and Benazir Bhutto's widower) Asif Zardari, agreed in Dubai that legislation to reinstate the judges will be brought to Parliament on May 12. The announcement came two days after the coalition's self-imposed deadline for restoring the judges.

Officially, the deadlock was caused by disagreement over whether the reinstatement should be accompanied by constitutional changes, with Zardari was pushing for new rules to prevent the judges from being sacked again in the future. (Unofficially, Zardari didn't want to bring back Musharraf's arch-enemy, former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, for fear that the latter would revive corruption charges that the Musharraf-appointed court had dismissed.)

The agreement appears to be a victory for Sharif, who hopes the speedy reinstatement of the judges will lay the groundwork for Musharraf's ouster. Zardari has a different view -- he says he wants to gradually erode Musharraf's power through legislation, and worries that an injunction against the president will be meaningless if the military doesn't play along. Pakistan may have to wait until after May 12 to see who's right.

The New America Foundation's Steve Coll and Peter Bergen were on CNN the other day, and they made some encouraging comments to Wolf Blitzer:

WOLF BLITZER (Host): [...] What's the latest in terms of the hunt for bin Laden? Is the U.S. and the West any closer to finding him?

STEVE COLL (President, CEO of New America Foundation): Well, I'm not aware of any specific intelligence that has lit up the trail in the last six months or so, but the circumstances in which he's hiding have changed. And he's probably in Pakistan and there his popularity has declined considerably, and also you've got a new government in power, so the motivations on the Pakistani side are changing very quickly.

BLITZER: What do you think, Peter?

PETER BERGEN (New America's Schwartz Senior Fellow): Yes, I think the hunt for bin Laden is going very poorly. As Steve said, bin Laden's support is evaporating in the North-West Frontier Province, where he's almost certainly hiding. A recent poll showed he had dropped from 70 percent favorable in August of 2007 to 4 percent.

BLITZER: So wouldn't that make it easier for Pakistani or other -- or the U.S., Afghan troops, somebody to find him?

PETER BERGEN: Yes. And I think the short answer is yes. Also a very sharp decline in support for suicide bombings amongst Pakistanis. Unfortunately, on the other hand, you have got a Pakistani government which is doing a deal with some of the militants in the North-West Frontier Province at the same time. So as always, sort of a mixed message here with the Pakistanis.

If the Pakistanis can convince those militants to dime out their special guest, it might all be worth it.

(Hat tip: Sameer Lalwani)

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The State Department has just released its annual report on global terrorism, as it does every April 30. Some highlights (read the AP synopsis here):

• On the strength of Al Qaeda: "It has reconstituted some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities through the exploitation of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas ... and [restored] some central control by its top leadership, in particular Ayman al-Zawahiri."
• On Al Qaeda's leadership: "Numerous senior al-Qaida operatives have been captured or killed, but al-Qaida leaders continued to plot attacks and to cultivate stronger operational connections that radiated outward from Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe."
• Terrorist attacks in Pakistan doubled between 2006 and 2007 and the number of fatalities quadrupled
• In Afghanistan, the number of terrorist attacks rose 16 percent in 2007
• Terrorist attacks in Iraq declined slightly between 2006 and 2007, but still accounted for 60 percent of terrorism fatalities worldwide, including 17 of the 19 Americans killed in attacks last year
• More than 22,000 people were killed by terrorists worldwide in 2007, 8 percent more than in 2006
• Iran is the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism
• In Iraq: 13,600 noncombatants were killed in 2007; suicide bombings in country rose by 50 percent; suicide car bombings were up 40 percent and suicide bombings outside of vehicles climbed 90 percent over 2006

The conclusions on Pakistan are likely to garner the most attention, and quite rightly. Watch for more calls like this one for a three-front war.

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A Pakistani local Taliban shoots a kidnapper in Rahim Kor village near the Mammad agency, some 60 kilometers from Peshawar on April 27, 2008, a day after they captured him with three kidnapped persons during an operation in the area. Pakistani tribal Taliban executed a person under the Islamic principle of Qisas on the charges of killing one of their comrades.

As Pakistan's new government settles in, press reports are saying that Husain Haqqani, an FP contributor and a former Carnegie Endowment analyst, will be made Pakistan's next ambassador to Washington. He would replace Mahmud Ali Durrani, a retired general who would become national security advisor. For now, Haqqani has been made "ambassador at large" and the change in Washington isn't expected until June, when Durrani's term expires.

If the reports are true, it's an interesting development. Haqqani has written extensively for FP, most recently in a debate with Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also the author of "Think Again: Islamist Terrorism" (along with Christine Fair), "Islam's Weakened Moderates," "The American Mongols," and "Islam's Medieval Outposts." A theme of his writing is a staunch defense of democracy and a plea to do more to help Islamic moderates weaken extremists. He has a lot of friends in Washington and in the media.

When we last interviewed Ambassador Durrani in November, I thought I detected some hedging on his part. He didn't seem entirely confident that Pervez Musharraf would remain the president, nor was he willing to take the usual shots against Benazir Bhutto. Perhaps he was just being characteristically polite. In any case, Durrani appears to be landing on his feet in the new order, so he must have played it smart.

State Department officials John Negroponte and Richard Boucher are in Islamabad for what sounds like an extremely uncomfortable meeting with Pakistan's new government. Pakistan People's Party advisor and FP contributor Husain Haqqani made it clear that things ain't what they used to be for the Americans in Pakistan:

If I can use an American expression, there is a new sheriff in town," Mr. Haqqani said. "Americans have realized that they have perhaps talked with one man for too long."

I'm surprised U.S. media outlets haven't picked up on this nugget from a story about Monday's bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, which targeted the Federal Investigative Authority:

Deputy Inspector General (Investigations) Tasadaq Hussain said police had collected the remains of the two attackers. Part of the head and a leg of the FIA building attacker were found from the roof of a nearby building, he said. He said the attacks had targeted the US-trained Special Investigations Group (SIG) that had been working on the third floor of the building. Plastic explosive C4 was used in the attacks, he added. [my emphasis]

Syed Saleem Shahzad, writing for the Asia Times, says the unit in question is "a joint initiative of US and Pakistani planners set up to eliminate the strong roots of radicalization in Punjab province." The worry is that jihadi groups from the northwest are extending their influence into historically moderate Punjab, making it easier to infiltrate and attack hard targets. Shahzad warns:

Tuesday's attacks are significant... in that the establishment's most secret underground offices are now on the militants' radar, and more attacks are anticipated.

(Hat tip: The indispensable NightWatch)

Syndicated columnist Robert Novak asks why the U.S. government is still going to bat for Pervez Musharraf after the Pakistani president was so clearly rejected at the polls:

Overwhelming repudiation of President Pervez Musharraf by Pakistan's voters did not immediately dilute the Bush administration's support for him. On the contrary, the first election returns were barely in Monday night when the U.S. government began pressing victorious opposition leaders not to impeach the former military strongman. [...]

Since Bhutto's murder, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has antagonized Pakistan's opposition leaders by insisting that Musharraf was committed to a ''good'' election while in fact voting rolls were being rigged. Minimal election-day vote fraud is attributed to Musharraf's weakness rather than strength. The army refused its cooperation, needed to really steal votes. According to Pakistani sources, the army high command was alarmed that Musharraf's unpopularity had undermined public esteem for the military.

These changes apparently escaped the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, which on election eve reported to Washington that Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q would do well enough to force a coalition government. Vote rigging probably cost the opposition 25 seats, mainly in Baluchistan -- not enough to prevent a two-thirds majority by opposition parties that could vote impeachment in the lower house.

More on State's pro-Musharraf maneuvering here. It's not the first time in recent years the State Department has made a bad pre-election call. Condoleezza Rice admitted being surprised when she heard Hamas had won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, despite plenty of signs that a groundswell of anger was brewing against Fatah. In fairness, these things are hard to predict. I, for one, expected Musharraf to do a better job with the cheating and thought there would be much more violence. But after the results are in, isn't it time to accept reality?

... I should note that Novak is wrong about the two-thirds majority, which the anti-Musharraf forces don't quite have.

Buried in the WSJ's interview with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf today was this little gem:

WSJ: Now you have two well-known figures from the 1990's, Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari, back in very powerful positions. Are you confident that the problems Pakistan had in the 1990's won't crop [up]again?

Mr. Musharraf: I hope not. There's the National Security Council, as I said. The other check is the freedom of the media. I would like to take all the credit for that. Whatever the media says, it is I who gave them the private television channels. Back in 2001, there used to be one -- Pakistan Television. Today, there are over 50 channels operating. The media should exercise a check over the government.

All the credit? For Pakistan's lousy "Not Free" rating from Freedom House's Freedom of the Press rankings? Or how about for American freelancer Nicholas Schmidle's expulsion from Pakistan last month a few days after he wrote about the Taliban in the frontier provinces? How about the fact that foreign journalists are essentially barred from reporting in half the country?

Musharraf specifically cites Pakistan's private television channels, apparently as levers of freedom he has bequeathed to the country. But he shut down most of those same channels during the recent emergency period; riot police tore up the offices of one of the most popular channels; and popular TV journalists have been put on "forced leave" or made to sign codes of conduct once they were allowed back on air. So, yes, Musharraf is right when he says "[t]he media should exercise a check over the government." But journalists have to be allowed to operate without censorship first.

Well, well, well. It looks like Pervez Musharraf didn't do such a good job rigging the elections after all:

Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, the former speaker of Parliament and six ministers.

Official results are expected Tuesday, but early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a Parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

It looks like Benazir Bhutto's party, the Pakistan People's Party, will win a plurality of seats, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League of former PM Nawaz Sharif. But we'll have to see what the official results bring when they are announced tomorrow, and we'll have to see if any secret deal was in fact struck to keep Musharraf in power. He is sounding mighty conciliatory right now.

The best news of the night? The fundamentalists were apparently trounced in the Northwest Frontier Provinces.

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Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, 27 December

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They say that only amateurs steal an election on election day. The groundwork is usually laid well ahead of time. This rule certainly seems to hold true for Monday's parliamentary elections in Pakistan, and if you had any doubts, just take it from the country's attorney general.

Human Rights Watch has obtained an audio recording of Attorney General Malik Qayyum talking on the phone to an unidentified politician in November. The politician seems to be asking Qayyum for his advice on what party he or she should run with for the election:

Leave Nawaz Sharif (PAUSE).... I think Nawaz Sharif will not take part in the election (PAUSE).... If he does take part, he will be in trouble. If Benazir takes part she too will be in trouble (PAUSE).... They will massively rig to get their own people to win. If you can get a ticket from these guys, take it (PAUSE).... If Nawaz Sharif does not return himself, then Nawaz Sharif has some advantage. If he comes himself, even if after the elections rather than before (PAUSE)…. Yes….” 

Given the context, it seems like "these guys" would refer to Pervez Musharraf's party, the PML-Q, but it's hard to tell for sure without the other side of the conversation. In retrospect, Qayyum's prediction about Benazir Bhutto is downright chilling as well.

(If you speak Urdu, the original audio is available on HRW's site as well.)

UPDATE: Qayyum says HRW's allegations are part of a "conspiracy against Pakistan."

Back in September, the experts surveyed for FP's Terrorism Index ranked Pakistan as the country "most likely to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists." With 74 percent of the vote, this clearly wasn't a tough call. But according to two Pakistani military officers, it's the United States that has the problem with nuke security. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reports on a press conference in Islamabad from a few days back:

... Pakistani Brig. Gen. Atta M. Iqhman expressed concern about U.S. procedures for handling nuclear weapons. Iqhman, who oversees the safety and security of the Pakistani nuclear force, said that U.S. protocols for storing and handling nuclear weapons are inadequate. "In Pakistan, we store nuclear warheads separately from their delivery systems, and a nuclear warhead can only be activated if three separate officers agree," Iqhman said. "In the United States, almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons still sit atop missiles, on hair-trigger alert, and it only takes two launch-control officers to activate a nuclear weapon. The U.S. government has persistently ignored arms control experts around the world who have said they should at least de-alert their weapons."  

Iqhman also said the Pakistani government would be willing to provide assistance and advice on nuclear handling and security. U.S. officials, unsurprisingly, had no comment. While there may be legitimate concerns about the hair-trigger launching procedure for American nukes, it's doubtful U.S. military officials have much to learn from A.Q. Khan's homeland on this issue. Or do they? Iqhman's deputy, Colonel Bom Zhalot, added this twist:

We also worry that the U.S. commander-in-chief has confessed to having been an alcoholic. Here in Pakistan, alcohol is 'haram,' so this isn't a problem for us. Studies have also found that one-fifth of U.S. military personnel are heavy drinkers. How many of those have responsibility for nuclear weapons?"

Definitely read the whole article for Col. Zhalot's thoughts on religion, Hiroshima, and the sanctity of life. It only gets better.

Update: Looks like I was taken by those pranksters at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The article turns out to be a satire, and a brilliant one at that. In retrospect, the MSNBC reporter named "Jay Keuse" probably should have tipped me off. In my defense, this sort of pushback seems totally plausible coming from the Pakistani military, which has been adamant that its nukes are secure.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images

There was much insight but not much in the way of definitive answers in a talk held here at Carnegie today on the military's role in next Monday's Pakistani parliamentary elections. Journalist and author Shuja Nawaz felt that in contrast to previous elections, "the mood is not for direct rule" within the military leadership, but this mood could quickly change with circumstances:

There are no parties extreme enough to warrant intervention by the Army in the election... But demonstrations against rigging may force military leaders to bring out the Army. If things get out of hand, the Army may be forced to push for a change."

According to Ayesha Siddiqa of the University of Pennsylvania, rigging appears quite likely. The government recently banned the media from reporting election results from polling stations, increasing the likelihood of "ghost polls" with falsified results. (Check out FP's list, "How to Steal an Election Without Breaking a Sweat," for more on misreporting and media manipulation.)

Siddiqa also cautioned against viewing new Pakistani Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Kiyani as a "knight in shining armor" coming to the country's rescue. While Kiyani has demonstrated an encouraging desire to keep the Army out of politics, he also faces the expectation that the military will move against Musharraf if Pakistan descends further into chaos. It's also important to remember that Kiyani will retire after three years. Given the officer corps he has inherited, any major reforms may be fleeting. Siddiqa:

The military culture has changed dramatically during Musharraf's regime. Younger officers have a sense of empowerment now and tend to look down on civlians."

In other words, Kiyani may be watching how the election plays out just as nervously as the rest of us.

Indonesia:

Palm oil surged to a record on speculation supplies for food and alternative fuel will be limited after Indonesia, the world's biggest producer, announced it would raise export taxes if prices climb further.

India:

No sooner did Indonesia signal higher export taxes on palm oil than India said it may cut import duty.

The moves by the two governments highlight the struggle to contain living costs for their 1.3 billion people. Prices of palm oil and its rival soybean oil hit records today.

Pakistan: 

Prices of edible oil may spiral out of control in coming days because of an increase in the price of palm oil in the international market, triggered by extraordinary Chinese purchases. More than half (56 per cent) of Pakistan's cooking oil and ghee are made from palm oil.

For more on what's behind this trend, check out the new column by FP editor in chief Moisés Naím, "Can the world afford a middle class?" His answer: Probably, but it's going to be painful and have unpredictable, wide-ranging effects.

FP contributor John McCreary relays some disturbing news from Pakistan. With President Pervez Musharraf under growing pressure from "several hundred retired generals, admirals and servicemen," his party is talking about letting "nuclear jihadist" A.Q. Khan off the hook:

In civilian politics, a leader of the pro-Musharraf PML-Q Party said that if it wins the Parliamentary elections on 18 February, it will not only release nuclear physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan from house arrest but will restore "his status," presumably including the right to vote and move freely in Pakistan and his passport.

India's The Hindu newspaper reports that Musharraf has already"partially lifted restrictions" on Khan, perhaps in a bid to appeal to nationalist sentiments in the military. The Pakistani president might be feeling the heat not only from retired service members (whom he dismissed earlier as "insignificant personalities"),but among current military leaders. As one retired general told the New York Times, "If you are getting all of this from people who have been in uniform, it is likely that those still in uniform feel the same way."

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

At a congressional hearing Tuesday on Pakistan's upcoming legislative elections, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher had this to say:

We don't necessarily accept a certain level of fraud but if history is any guide and reports are any guide, we should expect some."

Not to pick on Boucher—as a diplomat representing a country that backs Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, he can't very well go out and speak the truth—but it's likely that Musharraf has already stolen the elections. Only amateurs steal an election on election day, as election experts say.

As Carnegie Endowment expert Ashley Tellis carefully explained to Congress earlier this month, Musharraf has to ensure that the new parliament will ratify his extra-constitutional power grab. But he can't be sure that his party will win enough seats in a fair contest (and based on Musharraf's cratering personal popularity, it surely wouldn't). So he either has to trust that his main political rivals—former PM Nawaz Sharif, whom he deposed in a military coup, and Asif Zardari, who believes Musharraf is responsible for his wife's murder—would honor a power-sharing arrangement, or he has to cheat.

And indeed, some of the techniques from this week's List, "How to Steal an Election Without Breaking a Sweat," are already being deployed: sacking judges, manipulating the voter rolls, criminalizing media criticism of the incumbent, and so on. "Some" level of fraud? More likely, there's going to be just enough of it for Musharraf's party to win (which is the U.S.'s preferred outcome at this point, anyway). The real question, though, is how will the opposition parties react? Will there be riots in the streets? Will the Pakistani military, now under the leadership of the reportedly apolitical Ashfaq Kiyani, be willing to shoot demonstrators? We'll find out on Feb. 18.

In his Davos appearance today with Henry Kissinger, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf complained about media coverage of his country's nuclear weapons:

We are a nuclear state, and it is just unfortunate that we are seen to be unstable; that our nuclear assets can fall into wrong hands, into the hands of the terrorists... this is an Islamic bomb that Pakistan has. I really don't understand why the world calls it an Islamic bomb, and why there is no Hindu bomb, or a Jew bomb, or a Christian bomb, or a Buddhist bomb. Why is this bomb an Islamic bomb? I don't understand. And the man on the street in Pakistan does not understand this.

UPDATE: I asked Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, coauthors of The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets... And How We Could Have Stopped Him, to weigh in on the historical context for Musharraf's complaint. Their verdict? He's full of it:

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan ignores history when he complains that he doesn't understand why his country's nuclear weapons are referred to as "the Islamic bomb."

When the late Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto initiated the bomb project in 1972, he took a tour of Muslim countries with hat in hand to get money. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi sent couriers carrying suitcases of cash and the royals in Saudi Arabia provided free oil. To show his gratitude, Bhutto named a cricket stadium after Gadhafi and a town after King Faisal.

In fact, it was Bhutto himself, sitting his jail cell in 1978 awaiting execution, who defending his nuclear ambitions by writing, "The Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations have this power. The communist powers also possess it. Only the Islamic civilization is without it, but that position (is) about to change."

Finally, the father of the Islamic bomb, the rogue Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, often cited his anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments in defending his nation's nuclear arsenal and one of his motivations in selling nuclear technology to Iran and Libya was to spread the weapon to other Muslim countries and divert attention from Pakistan.

At a Council on Foreign Relations panel discussion today, Time's Joe Klein observed that while Republicans are most concerned about Iran, Democrats tend to be more worried about Pakistan. It's a pattern that has not gone unnoticed in Islamabad, as a recent Der Speigel interview with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf makes clear:

SPIEGEL: The next US president could be a Democrat. The front-runners have already stated they would change their political course with Pakistan. Hillary Clinton wants to impose American controls on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, and Barack Obama would like to send American troops to fight extremists in your country ...

Musharraf: ... (laughs, shakes his head) ...

SPIEGEL: ... they also might cut back military and economic aid to Pakistan, which has amounted to more than $10 billion since 2001. Have the Democratic front-runners contacted you already?

Musharraf: All these politicians you have mentioned and who talk that way do not have access to intelligence information that could provide them with an accurate view of the situation. When these people get access to that kind of intelligence, I am sure they will not take a different approach than their predecessor. Why would they want to do something to destabilize us, a nuclear power? They will not act against their own national interest.

Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf pooh-poohs talk that the United States might send troops or at least special forces into his country's tribal areas:

Our troops, who are the locals, who understand groups and customs, are very hardy. Our troops can go on roti and water. American troops would need chocolate.