General Pervez Musharraf is in a labyrinth, which is partly his own doing. The dictator, who has erred only very little in his eight years of military rule, seems to have overplayed his hand in first trying to tame the judiciary and then going all out to throttle the voice of dissent. Since March, his repeated miscalculations have inspired rebellion in the judicial community and the media, and generously helped the opposition to come together. But more alarmingly, as the recent violence in Karachi made it apparent, they have steadily pushed the country to the verge of another ethnic flare-up. The blood-letting on the streets of Karachi on the day the suspended chief justice of the country’s supreme court, Iftikhar Chaudhary, was to hold a rally, was the direct result of Mr Musharraf’s inability to see the situation for what it is worth. The general has before him a veritable evidence of popular disaffection caused by his high-handedness. The public hostility first made itself apparent in the mass protests against the dismissal of Mr Chaudhary (who is facing a retrial in the supreme court) on charges of corruption. The protests continued unabated despite the administration’s attempt to suppress them, allowing Mr Chaudhary to become the rallying figure for the disenchanted as also for the opportunists in the opposition.

Mr Musharraf’s unwillingness to accept this reality is also the reason behind his misconstrued battle plans. To dilute the threat posed by Mr Chaudhary, and thereby his political rivals, the general has not thought twice in using the ethnic ruse. The pro-Musharraf show of the Muttahida Quami Movement (the party of the minority muhajirs) in Karachi, which led to the violence, was the general’s way of stealing his opponent’s thunder. Unfortunately, far from quelling the threat to his leadership, the device has multiplied it by adding the possibility of a serious ethnic unrest to the already volatile scenario. Yet, stability could be Mr Musharraf’s only bet to push through his re-election, within the next few months, as president for another term. It is also the only way he can convince his Western allies that he remains their best man to conduct the war on terror in this part of the world. The general has recently slipped too often on his surveillance on this front. He could not afford to allow the situation at home to undo his cleverly-laid out plans to give a continued lease of life to his dictatorship.