A Militant Pakistan Remains Unlikely

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is fighting to maintain control of Pakistan in the face of rising Islamic militancy and a secular pro-democracy movement.

A key U.S. ally, Musharraf himself remains under threat, most recently on Friday, when unknown suspects opened fire from a rooftop after his plane took off from a military base.

For some in the West, an exit _ especially a violent one _ for the military strongman conjures up a scenario of Pakistan and its nuclear weapons falling into militant hands.

But for the moment, moderate, pro-Western forces appear far stronger than radical Islamists, and would likely emerge victorious from the turmoil that could follow the president's removal.

Islamist parties have never scored higher than 12 percent in a general election. And while there are real concerns that the government has lost control of territory near the Afghan border, there is no sign that senior military commanders sympathize with the extremists there, even though Pakistan once supported the Taliban.

Musharraf said his decision to side with the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks served Pakistan's national interest, and a civilian ruler would likely have come to the same conclusion, Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, wrote in a recent issue of Pakistan's Friday Times weekly devoted to post-Musharraf scenarios.

If the general were to exit the scene, some expect the army to quickly stage-manage a return to full civilian rule, just as it did following the country's two earlier periods under a military president.

The powerful generals would retain strong influence with any coalition government formed by moderate parties expected to dominate after the elections.

The generals would also be eager to keep billions of dollars in post-9/11 military and economic aid flowing from Washington, Curtis said.

"We don't think that after Musharraf the extremists or the fundamentalists will take over," said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who is widely expected to make a political comeback after year-end elections.

"Pakistan's electoral history proves that the religious parties have never gained that kind of strength that they can rule the country. but Gen. Musharraf is deliberately promoting this view," Babar said. "He wants to give the impression that, 'After me, the whole structure will collapse.'"

The bloody army siege of Islamabad's Red Mosque _ in which at least 24 people have died _ so far has fueled concern about the threat posed by Islamic extremism to Pakistan's stability.