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        SGeneral Musharraf has not accepted to visit India for the SAARC summit despite the invitation having been communicated to him through External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

        Musharraf is sending his foreign Minister in his place. He visited India when the peace process was not making any headway but would not now when, according to him, the climate for peace is brightening. The reason for this has to be traced to the difficulties he is facing at home. His military operation against tribals has induced reservations against him in the Army which feels that he is obliging Americans too much.

        Such hard feelings are intensified by his current hostile attitude to Taliban for which the Army has as soft a corner as it has for fundamentalist groups. Most recently the mullahs have been told that they would be put behind bars if they indulged in criticism against the General.

        Taliban had been nurtured by Islamabad. Other fundamentalistic groups who have secured a place in the National Assembly, who have been supporting the Musharraf regime, are angered by the tough operations against extremism. At the same time his main political rivals who form part of the outfits of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto have decided to unite against him . This is a situation which compels him to avoid foreign visits to rein in in whatever manner he deems fit the Opposition which is keen to dethrone him.

        One guarantee which he has had so far in the Army being loyal to him is weakened by their being compelled to conduct raids against their own people to oblige the US which has begun saying openly that Taliban and Al-Qaeda hideouts remain safe as ever on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. The latter has been complaining quite legitimately that the resurgence of the threat to it from Taliban has been engineered by Islamabad. Washington has not only asserted that terrorist bases function from Pak territory but that the General's promise to the US, as its ally in America's global war against terrorism, is losing credibility because of softness towards extremists which, after being banned, have reappeared under different names.

        The growing disillusionment about the General in his main base, the Army, as superimposed on the circumstances referred to above have made him the bad boy of everybody in Pakistan. Bush regards him as a good man but one who has yet to deliver fast. No wonder, he is armtwisting the General to increase tremendously the pressure of his armed forces in Waziristan. His attempt to obtain for the Taliban some leeway in Afghanistan has been shot down by NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ) and the Western media. He is thus assailed on all sides. He should naturally be afraid that if his back were turned, one of two things or, perhaps both, can happen: his rivals could gain ground or a coup may be staged against him by one of his own Generals who could be waiting for him to leave the country. He would not go out of the country therefore.

        Strangely, the only friend he now has is India. Pranab Mukherjee's visit is reported to have substantive results as wished by the General. The Nuclear Risk Reduction Agreement will be signed during Pak Foreign Minister Kasuri's forthcoming visit to India. Front channel and back channel diplomacy on Kashmir is faring well and Mirwaiz, the Hurriyat leader, could go to Pakistan without any ado. It is unfortunate in these circumstances that Waziristan Baluchistan, sectarian strife, Afghanistan , Al Qaeda and terrorism in general are on the boil shackling the General from finding an easy way out.