What’s next in Pakistan?

The Pakistani government is currently meeting to decide what to do about the Parliamentary elections scheduled for January. It seems almost certain that they will be postponed. The next question is whether Musharraf returns Pakistan to a state of emergency. 

Nawaz Sharif, the mild Islamist who is now the leading opposition figure in Pakistan and who has the support of the Saudis, has already told grieving Bhutto supporters, “I will fight your war from now on”. The worry for the West has to be that the only alternatives to Musharraf are now figures that have explicitly backed a more anti-Western approach. Bob Kagan’s warnings about the dangers of supporting Musharraf seem particularly prescient now.