Tariq Ali's a brilliant chap but he does love the nuttiest theories. WTF is this about:
"Hamid Mir, one of its sharpest journalists, reported yesterday afternoon that according to his sources the US Embassy had green lighted the coup because they regarded the Chief Justice as a nuisance and 'a Taliban sympathiser'."

Yes that piece was quite lame compared to the Rashid one. i do think that the Musharaf regime has tried to suggest that its opponents are all Taliban sympathisers, though. And certainly if you look at the US response it's essentially an endorsement of the coup -- "democracy must be restored as soon as possible" as Rice said, which means not for a few years and not immediately. Some good discussion of the US language here

I disagree. Musharraf is facing a mini-revolt within the Army (units are refusing to fight Al-Qaeda supporters in the FATA and elsewhere), and the US fails to see how declaring martial law somehow gives him more power over the Army. The US can be -- and has been -- duped by anti-terror rhetoric from Musharraf, but in this case, the ruse is too transparent.

And second, I am shocked -- shocked -- that you're not a fan of the State Department's 25-year old non-Muslim outreach coordinator to the Islamic World.

I'm skeptical about US policy towards Pakistan (or anywhere else) ever being about democracy... we shall see. What you say about the army might be right, and it's certainly hard to see what new leverage over them Musharaf gets.

On the other item, I don't care that he's not a Muslim (I don't think that should ever matter in appointing officials) but am rather concerned by his simplistic views and the fact that he neither studied the Middle East nor speaks decent Arabic -- he's a Latin America expert, isn't he? He sounds like a better educated Michael Totten.