Qalandar sees in Musharraf’s recent pronouncements, on the centrality of the military to Pakistan’s national project and on other such issues, signs that should worry Pakistan’s democrats:

Such image-making is par for the course in many countries — but given the context of Pakistan’s hard won electoral freedoms, and the enduring influence of the military-intelligence apparatus(es) on Pakistan’s public life; and given, above all, the all-too-frequent tendency of Pakistan’s urbane classes toward facile despair with the venality and inefficiencies of civilian politicians (and consequent acceptance of the more systemic corruption of a military regime, especially one clothed in neo-Ataturk garb) — Pakistan’s democrats (or at least those not too busy cheerleading the military, rather than asking how and why three million people need to be displaced to deal with 4,000 militants) ignore this move at their peril. As does an international community that might yet remain wedded to the vision of a Pakistan that was simply “better managed” under Musharraf, and hence that the man might need to be brought back in some way, shape, or form.