Zardari has changed from cue boy of Inter-Services Intelligence -- and thus by extension the Pakistani army -- to a leader with very different views on the correct path that his country ought to follow. Instead of the endless repetitions of the many "sacred" wars that the military has been touting as justification for taking away one-third of the country's budget -- directly and through agencies connected with it -- Zardari has given public expression to the view of most of Pakistan's non-Wahhabi majority, that it is time to put aside jihad and concentrate on economic growth.

The reason for such a transformation may lie in the clumsy and continuous efforts of the army brass to prevent the heir to the late Benazir Bhutto's mantle from assuming any office in "civilian-controlled" Pakistan. Numerous hints, designed to prod Zardari into selecting yet another army pawn as the head of state, failed. So the generals looked toward the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to scupper the move, having given their numerous backers in Washington details about Zardari -- details unsuitable for audiences below the age of consent.

None of this seemed to have affected his marriage, however. Interestingly, Benazir Bhutto chose as her consort a man very similar in temperament to her idol, her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Like his future son-in-law, Papa Bhutto was a playboy with a mercurial disposition as well as an exuberant and sometimes extra-rational belief in his own capabilities. Bhutto too spoke in populist language, even while being unstinted in his taste for the good life. And he too saw the army as the single obstacle to his power.

Unlike the pliant Gilani, who delights in spending time with the brass and their families, since his inauguration Zardari has maintained a distance between himself and the army's General Headquarters. Although at first he seemed to accept the role of camouflage agent that the Pakistani military invariably has asked the civilian leadership to perform, within a month things changed.

The army has been pointing to the civilian leadership as the reason why it is "unable" to do more against the Taliban state taking shape on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, when in fact it has been its own terror-and-narcotics-driven links to the jihadis that have stopped it from stamping this band out. Should the Taliban be denied the financial and logistical support of GHQ, this ragtag band of adventurers would fold in six weeks.

Sadly, as yet, both the Pentagon and the Bush White House are in denial about the role of the Pakistani military in propping up the Taliban. Now they have been given a choice: to back Zardari in his coming duel against the generals, or once again to side with the men in khaki.

Most U.S. "South Asia experts" would favor Kayani, who has been busy convincing them of the "severe constraints" being invisibly placed by the civilian government headed by Gilani, roadblocks that, according to Kayani, are preventing more effective action against the Taliban. Kayani is known to favor the self-defeating policy of "engaging" the Taliban in booty-sharing exercises rather than bringing to bear the array of U.S.-supplied weaponry against them.

Should U.S. policymakers throw their weight behind the army chief, within a few months a major scandal could be expected to surface that would fell Zardari, who then would be swiftly replaced with an army proxy. Of course, media everywhere can be expected to celebrate the fall of "Mr. 10 Percent" the way they have lionized former Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhury, an individual openly linked to the wealthiest politician in Pakistan, Mian Nawaz Sharif, who has made his peace with the army brass.

Zardari seems to have moved beyond showing the caution of Benazir, whose pliability to the army's diktat did not save her -- or him. Rather, he is exhibiting the feistiness of her father, Zulfiqar, in refusing to act as the civilian face behind the army's desire to keep NATO out of Pakistan's tribal areas, despite being the base area for the war in Afghanistan. He has, unlike his party's prime minister, refused to back the generals in their covert war on India, preferring instead to go the route of conciliation.

Kayani is now in a process of consolidation of power and has handed out key posts only to those loyal to the "Kayani strategy" of overt cooperation with NATO combined with covert subversion, driving out those officers from sensitive posts who were loyal to former army chief Pervez "Busharraf."

Simultaneously, he has launched a charm offensive in NATO capitals, talking in the tones of an ally while allowing the civilians to convey the message that NATO should rely on Pakistan the way the CIA so catastrophically did during the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s.

As the Washington establishment has a history of credulity vis-a-vis the character of the Pakistani military, the United States may yet decide to believe the men in uniform, stalwart chaps so different from "Mr. 10 Percent," forgetting once again that the Pakistani army is the only major provider of strength to the Taliban.

Unless the army's bluff is called and it is forced into either accepting NATO intervention or itself stamping out the Taliban, the situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan will worsen terminally. It is Zardari rather than Kayani who may be the more reliable ally in the anti-terror war now raging in the Pashtun heartland.

(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO peace chair and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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