Musharraf faces a pincer attack

It isn't exactly what his American doctors prescribed. But in setting a date for elections in January and promising to shed his uniform, Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf has taken some of the medication needed to heal his country after he "swallowed the bitter pill of the emergency". Is it enough? Will it satisfy critics dismissing it as an "attempt at a sop" to a nation deeply troubled by the summary arrests of its vocal, educated elite and a draconian law that allows the army to prosecute civilians?

An unapologetic, angry Musharraf refusing to end the emergency and insisting polls be held under emergency rule fails to realise that restrictions on campaigning do not lend themselves to the promise of free and fair elections.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pakistan opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif - all curiously singing from almost the same page - see this is as only a small step. They say he must follow with the release of thousands arrested in the crackdown, lift media restrictions and reinstate an independent judiciary. With the 53-nation Commonwealth threatening to revisit Pakistan's suspension in '99, Musharraf may well discover the true meaning of his phrase "caught between a rock and a hard place".