WASHINGTON, June 9: The opposition-government conflict in Pakistan is viewed in Washington also as a test for the US policy of encouraging democracy in the Muslim world.

Government officials and policy planners point out that if the situation in Pakistan further deteriorates, the Bush administration will be forced to decide whom to support: a general who came into power by toppling an elected government or a group of elected politicians strongly opposed to US presence in South Asia.

They admit that it will not be an easy decision. Also at stake is Pakistan’s alliance with the United States in the war against terror and a still-nascent move to reduce tensions with India, US policy planners say.

At a recent seminar at the Brookings Institution, several speakers pointed out that some of the forces challenging President Musharraf want Pakistan to opt out of the alliance against terror because they see it as directed against their fellow Muslims. They also do not want Pakistan to give any concession to India over the Kashmir dispute, the speakers said.

At another recent seminar at the American Enterprise Institute, an influential right-wing think-tank in Washington, several speakers expressed the fear that this situation was going to repeat itself in other Muslim countries as well. US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have not only ended unpopular regimes in those two countries, they have also antagonized Muslims around the world. From Indonesia to Morocco, people in most of the 56 Islamic states see America as an aggressor, the speakers observed.

The Washington Post recently pointed out that this perception of America as an adversary had led many Muslims to support the forces that were seen as anti-American. The US media point out that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ulema have emerged as the unchallenged leaders of the anti-American camp in the Islamic world. And, therefore, they are also the main beneficiaries of these anti-American sentiments.

But from popular TV talk show hosts to major newspaper columnists, all point out that the campaign to oust the general is led by the same forces that patronized Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime.

Reporting that Pakistan’s two main opposition parties — the PPP and the PML-N —support the MMA’s campaign against Gen Musharraf, the US press says that while in power, both parties opposed religious influence in politics. They also fought against each other. But now they are allied for a common cause.

“Unfortunately, this grand alliance threatens much more than a military regime. The MMA, which dominates the alliance and the campaign to oust President Musharraf, also wants to bring a Taliban-style government to Pakistan. In the Northwest Frontier Province, where it controls the state government, the MMA has banned Western dress at schools. It is urging women to wear the veil and men to grow beards. It has also banned music in passenger buses, forced video shops to close down and removed billboards that showed women models,” said a recent op-ed piece in a California newspaper.