Bush calls Musharraf, tells him to shed uniform

“You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time,” Bush said to Musharraf over telephone.

Playing down the notion that double standards were being adopted in the approach towards Pakistan as compared to Myanmar, he said “our objective is same in Burma as it is in Pakistan, and that is to promote democracy. There is a difference, however.”

Pakistan has been on the path to democracy. Burma hadn’t been on the path to democracy. And it requires different tactics to achieve the common objective, he said.

French President Sarkozy while expressing his concern over situation in Pakistan, said, “it’s worrisome, and we need to have elections as swiftly as possible. You cannot combat extremism using the same methods as extremists.”

“And it is very important that Pakistan organise elections and, like President Bush, I wish this to take place as speedily as possible,” he said.

Let me remind that a country of 150 million who happen to have nuclear weapons. This is very important for us, that one day we should wake up with a government, an administration in Pakistan which is in the hands of the extremists, Sarkozy added.

But on Capitol Hill, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told law makers that while Washington “strongly disagrees” with the course of action taken by Musharraf, “the disagreement should not translate into dis-engagement.”

“We strongly counseled against emergency rule, but Pakistan’s leadership did not follow our advice,” Negroponte told Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

He acknowledged that there were a number of statutes, vis a vis, assistance programmes to Pakistan but the Bush administration has not got to the point of looking at the alternatives and that there was nothing that is automatically triggered.

Musharraf, the senior State Department official said, has been indispensable in the global war on terror.

“Extremists and radicals have tried to assassinate him multiple times, and no country has done more to punish the al-Qaeda and the Taliban.”

“We need to commend the government of Pakistan and the security forces,” he said in response to a query.

But, President Musharraf and the administration did have at least one ally in Republican Congressman from Indiana, Dan Burton, who said that right now Pakistan is a “friend and ally” of the United States and that calls for action against Musharraf should be put in perspective.

“We are in a nuclear age. We have to be very, very careful about this,” Burton said.