Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Steve Schippert, co-founder of the Center for Threat Awareness and managing editor for ThreatsWatch.org.

FP: Steve Schippert, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Schippert: Thank you Jamie.

FP: Why has President Musharraf instated emergency powers in Pakistan? Is this a necessary move? Is it a smart one?

Schippert: It is difficult to observe Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of a state of emergency and the suspension of the Pakistani constitution as anything other than a move of self-preservation. He did not impose a state of emergency at the tip of a military thrust into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the NorthWest Frontier Province in a concerted drive to crush the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Instead, he surrounded the Supreme Court and removed – once again – Supreme Court Chief Justice Chaudhry. This time, he has also cut off land line and cellular phone communications and had shut down non-state-run media outlets as well as occupied the offices of the state-run media with police.

Is it necessary? Musharraf thinks so, clearly. At issue is the unconstitutional nature of the civilian president also being in uniform, particularly as the co-terminus Army Chief of Staff. It was increasingly believed that the Supreme Court was going to rule against Musharraf and declare his October election as president null and void. He had the parliament amend the rules to instead allow the presidential election ahead of the parliamentary elections. Those parliamentary elections will undoubtedly usher in a new anti-Musharraf majority. He would have never been elected president under the traditional process. Instead, Musharraf decided to unseat the influential Chief Justice and usurp the Supreme Court.

In the short term, this will preserve Musharraf's rule. The army remains largely - though not universally – loyal. The critical point – the potential tipping point, if you will – will be when the Army is called upon to put down mass protests. How much force will they use on their own civilian population? And this is the crux…and also why Musharraf has done what he has done to begin with.

Meaning, while the Taliban and al-Qaeda are a threat to him (they have, after all, openly made numerous attempts at assassination), they do not as yet have the ability to inspire over 100,000-strong street protests across Pakistani cities beyond the Wild West tribal regions they control. This – from the more civilized and largely Anglicized liberal areas of Pakistan - is a greater immediate threat to his rule.

Police confronted and reportedly beat with batons some who were part of what was said to be thousands of protesters led by lawyers on the streets in Lahore, home of the Supreme Court. Police also confronted and beat back protesters in other cities. But the protests are not yet epic in size. That's still to come. And it;s the police forces, the most loyal to Musharraf, and not the Army. That is also coming.

Will the Army put down tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands at a time protesting in the streets of Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and elsewhere? It's coming, and we will soon find out. I have serious doubts they will.

If they do not – and there is good reason to believe they will may not – Musharraf is in even deeper trouble than he is in today. He will have lost the public and the Army – many of whom are already defecting to the Taliban and al-Qaeda in a steady stream, though not much is discussed of this. Musharraf cannot last if he loses support of the army.

Long story short, had Musharraf made even a modest attempt at packaging the State of Emergency as necessary for confronting the threat of extremist Taliban and al-Qaeda elements inside Pakistan's own borders, he could have at least a moral leg to stand on. But he hasn't even made an attempt to veil the declaration as such. This means he alienates the Pakistani public and Washington, which would be willing to stomach much in exchange for a Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance put on the defensive and into survival mode.

Not so now, as Secretary of State Rice has said that the United States will be reviewing its Pakistani aid package in light of these developments.

FP: In what ways might al-Qaeda and the Taliban exploit Musharraf's declared state of emergency to their advantage?

Schippert: The same way they exploited the division between the democratic liberals (in the classic sense, not in the distorted Americanized sense) and Musharraf earlier this year when the president removed Chief Justice Chaudhry from the Supreme Court: By tapping and exacerbating the two sides' uniform displeasure or even hatred of Musharraf. The liberals want to unseat him, al-Qaeda wants to kill him – either way, they both want him gone. But that's where the similarities end in this context.

The liberals want to gain power through democratic means in order to ensure an open democratic system going forward. The Taliban and al-Qaeda Islamists – through those that identify with them in the large six party religious political alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) – seeks to gain power through the democratic system in order to destroy the institution of democracy and replace it with Sharia rule.

This is why occasional talk now about the rise of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the leader of the MMA, as someone the West can do business with is somewhat troubling. He said in a 2003 interview, “It has never been MMA's policy to use force to implement Islam. Islam is not a religion of coercion or extremism. The Frontier province is the most peaceful province in the country.” As he says, the MMA party doesn't seek violence. However, it seeks to use the institution of democracy in Pakistan to remove the institution of democracy in Pakistan. Rehman, after all, has been considered by some to be the “godfather of the Taliban.”

Yet, I say 'somewhat troubling' because there are some intimately familiar with the MMA and its members who are convinced a majority of them have turned from the Taliban now that they are in Pakistan and not elsewhere in Afghanistan. Providing them an alternative – or considering such – is not an unhealthy exercise if so. After all, we did not turn the 1920's Brigades insurgents in Iraq by killing them all. We found common ground and leveraged it. And now they hunt and kill al-Qaeda, not our troops.

FP: To what degree has Musharraf been a valued ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban?

Schippert: Simply put, Musharraf's value has always been that he kept Pakistan as a state from aligning against us. Our hope had been that he would aggressively take on the Taliban and al-Qaeda inside Pakistan. But he has not, and now they may well be too strong for him and his army to dispatch. Such are the magnified later dangers granted when terrorists are given safe haven through 'peace accords,' namely in ceding North and South Waziristan. And now it's “later.”

The unfortunate fact remains is that of those in position to cede him, one way or another, he is still the most effective – or least damaging – alternative.

FP: How popular or unpopular is Musharraf at home?

Schippert: Extremely unpopular among both the liberals and the Islamists and many in between. This widespread discontent in part is why he moved to shut down communications and independent media.

However, let's also recall that the over 40 independent, non-state-controlled media outlets in Pakistan today, every single one of them exist because of Musharraf. It wasn't former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who allowed independent media to spring in Pakistan, and it certainly wasn't former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. It was Musharraf. I think that must say at least something.

Again, he is unpopular on all fronts. Both the Islamists and the liberals want him out. But where they want to go from there is wildly different. And when Musharraf says he is declaring emergency powers and halting the court that would essentially unseat him with one decision in order to save Pakistan from a disintegration of sorts, it's not like he is without a valid point.

If only he could have seen that far down the road when it came to dealing with a newly arrived Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance in 2003.

FP: What should US policy be toward the developments and toward Musharraf and Pakistan in general?

Schippert: Toward the developments, the United States must stand on the principles of democracy and insist that Musharraf end the state of emergency and retire from uniformed service and as Army and Chief of Staff. President Bush made such a statement Monday and he is correct in doing so. The ripple effect for us extends beyond Pakistan if we do not. We will be perceived as without principle and an untrustworthy ally if we do not stand actively for democracy, especially among our allies. We can ill-afford this.

This is an unfortunate circumstance to for us to be in right now. While there is much criticism to be levied against Musharraf regarding his apprehensive approach to the Taliban and al-Qaeda within his own borders, he remains the most desirable leader in that regard among the those that seek to replace him. It only gets more difficult after him.

There are more policy options than many may think with regard to Pakistan, some of which I discussed here last week. But no matter the specific combination enacted, U.S. policy must increasingly be one of action, and the American public has to come to terms with the cold hard fact that the defeat of al-Qaeda inside Pakistan will require American force. Unless there is a miraculous turn of tribal sentiment inside the tribal areas combined with a similarly miraculous newfound ambition from Pakistani leadership, Pakistan will not be that force. Our NATO allies can hardly stomach small and low intensity deployments to Afghanistan.

Yes, we are already stretched militarily. Yes, the political situation inside Pakistan is tumultuous. Yes, it will be immensely difficult and bloody. But there really isn't much of a real alternative at the end of the day. Unlike in Iraq, inside Pakistan al-Qaeda is neither in survival mode nor on the defensive. And al-Qaeda gets stronger each day.

Many political leaders and public figures have condemned operations inside Iraq on the grounds that the “real War on Terror” is in Afghanistan. One day, they will have to earn their mettle and own those words.

FP: Steve Schippert, thank you for joining us.

Schippert: My pleasure Jamie.

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here.

Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.