For exiled Sharif, the journey begins

It will either be the moment of truth or the greatest let down in its history. Disregarding all advice, Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is set to return home today to challenge the army chief who ousted him from power eight years ago. He could as easily be sent to jail or deported as brother Shahbaz was in 2004 when he attempted a return.

Pakistan's cities are on high alert. Hundreds of Sharif's supporters have been detained to forestall the kind of street agitations that brought the country to a standstill only months ago over the botched sacking of the chief justice.

Sharif's unrelenting attacks against military rule may have won him more supporters than when he was forced from office. But the confrontation Sharif seeks as a means of ousting Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf is fraught with danger, given the climate of uncertainty, complicated by radical Islamists threatening civil society.

With a weak president facing the stark choice to retain or discard one of his posts, Sharif's return could not have come at a worse moment. Whether it helps this key Western ally in the war against terror on the road to democracy or disturbs the uneasy status quo however, remains the question.