In Pakistan Quandary, U.S. Reviews Stance.

The scenes of carnage in Pakistan this week conjured what one senior administration official on Friday called “the nightmare scenario” for President Bush’s last 15 months in office: Political meltdown in the one country where Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and nuclear weapons are all in play.

White House officials insisted in interviews that they had confidence that their longtime ally, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, would maintain enough influence to keep the country stable as he edged toward a power-sharing agreement with his main rival, Benazir Bhutto. [...]

But some experts say the focus on General Musharraf is a mistake. They argue that Pakistan’s army is overwhelmingly moderate and will remain so, even without General Musharraf. “I think our policy has been too much built around one person — and that is Musharraf,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The result was that we were seen more as Musharraf’s friends than Pakistan’s friends.”

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