EVEN as President Musharraf sings the unity anthem, saying all is well in the ranks of his motley supporters, simmering differences in the officially-sponsored Q League burst into the open, the president of the League, Shujaat Hussain, suddenly training his guns on former prime minister Jamali, Jamali protesting hurt innocence, a cabal of out-of-power Leaguers sharpening their knives against Shujaat, permanent prime ministerial hopeful Humayun Akhtar jumping into the fray and taking further potshots at Shujaat, and no one in Islamabad, a city since its founding dedicated to intrigue and upheaval, with the faintest clue as to what’s happening.

Amidst all this excitement and drama — shoot the person who says life is dull in the Islamic republic — Pakistan’s gift to global banking, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, is away on one of his never-ending foreign visits, delivering speeches and giving press/TV interviews without purpose or rationale. Trouble on the Q front means more headaches for Gen Musharraf. What is Shaukat’s role in reducing his boss’s political burden? Zero.

Shaukat is Musharraf’s third prime minister. If the first, Jamali, was an invitation to sleep, and the second, Shujaat, a 45-days’ wonder, the third, Shaukat, is already giving rise to grave second thoughts along the corridors of the presidency. No kidding, the damning verdict being whispered about him: slippery and too smooth, and politically a cipher.

Not to worry, however. President Hosni Mobarak of Egypt in power since — hold it — 1981, and for that very reason, one suspects, the role model for the Musharraf presidency, has digested seven prime ministers. Musharraf has seen off only two, even as he stoically endures the third. He still has a long way to go.

Pakistan may lack other commodities but not prime ministerial hopefuls. Indeed, around every corner in Islamabad lurks a would-be prime minister. You can’t blame the candidates either because if such models of brilliance as Jamali and Shujaat, or a political orphan like Shaukat, can be prime minister, why not anyone else? Even Zardari, I am told, wants to be prime minister, which only goes to prove my point.

Pakistan’s American godfathers, convinced Musharraf is the best thing ever to have happened in Pakistan, are not amused. Ecstatic about the president’s external achievements — helping fight the good war against Al Qaeda, not flinching even when American demands get excessive, which they usually tend to do, and, under American tutelage, walking the extra mile in soothing and placating India — they despair about his internal position. Wishing to strengthen it, indeed wishing to broaden the constituency of ‘liberalism’ and ‘moderation’, they are urging Benazir Bhutto to make her peace with Musharraf and go over to his side.

Benazir is no fool, neither Asif for that matter, but they couldn’t be more deluded if they think the Americans are primarily interested in them. If the Americans have a hand in promoting the reconciliation drama, they are doing it not for love of Benazir but for love of Musharraf, their foremost interest in Pakistan Musharraf’s survival, no matter what it costs. Mobarak may have become dispensable in Egypt, which is why the Americans have suddenly re-discovered an interest in Egyptian democracy, but not Musharraf in Pakistan.

But to keep things in perspective, on offer to the PPP is junior partnership, a share of the cake, no more, that too in return for good behaviour and a clear understanding of who is boss. It’s a poisoned chalice thus being offered, as reconciliation on these terms is no better than a form of political suicide which no political party, concerned about its name or political standing, would happily contemplate if it had a choice or if its path was guided by anything approximating to principles.

But Benazir and Asif are in a bind. They want another shot at power and, while cases in Pakistani courts can be dealt with more easily, they are understandably keen to be rid of the money-laundering and corruption cases pending against them before the Swiss judiciary. A conviction there would be hard to brush off as political victimization. It would spell big political trouble and shatter international standing.

So for these reasons they are playing ball with Musharraf, the more readily as the Americans too, on whom Benazir has always banked a lot, are also urging them to do the same.

Pity the dilemma in which Musharraf finds himself. If the mob of power-seekers huddled under the umbrella of the Q League had anything going for them, if they were able to garner genuine political support, if Shaukat Aziz had a better grasp of politics than he has of banking, if Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and his ambitious cousin, Pervaiz Elahi, were at all capable of making the transition from Gujrat to the national scene, the ringmaster of this circus, Gen Pervez Musharraf, would be under no compulsion to deal with the PPP for whose leaders he has spent the better part of five years registering his utter contempt.

But the Q League being what it is, an artificial construct buttressed by the intelligence agencies, and 2007 looming, when the president is up for re-election, Musharraf must sup, so to speak, with the devil. Only problem is that while Musharraf knows all too clearly what he wants, he’s less clear about what he wants to give in return, the old problem of wanting to have your cake and eating it, too.

For all practical purposes the PML-N is out of the reconciliation loop, largely because Nawaz Sharif wants to be no part of any deal with Musharraf. Nawaz may have been muddle-headed in power, which is why he blew his mandate and couldn’t see the ditch his government was plunging into, but in exile he’s remarkably clear-headed about the kiss of death that any deal with Musharraf would amount to. Chemistry rather than politics is at work here because both Musharraf and Nawaz share a mutual loathing for each other.

Talented brother, Shahbaz, is in a different boat altogether — to all appearances not averse to any deal which brings him within striking distance of power. His problem is the perception that without Nawaz he is nothing, because of which he is not taken seriously, not least by Musharraf and his circle, a galling thought for an ambitious man.

The flaming beards of the MMA, the alliance of religious parties, all things to all men, loud in rhetoric, cautious in action, are probably the clearest beneficiaries of the mess the Pakistani domestic political scene is in. They may have suffered a crisis of credibility after bailing out Musharraf in 2003 (by voting for his constitutional amendments) but their strident anti-Americanism and oppositionist stance generally (often more posture than anything for real) wins them vital public support and sympathy, especially when the other political parties are not talking of big issues and are sacrificing credibility at the altar of reconciliation.

Savour the ensuing paradox. ‘Enlightened moderation’, Gen Musharraf’s great discovery after September 11, far from making Pakistan a haven of anything enlightened is giving the mullahs added strength because they are the only ones around playing to the public mood as far as America is concerned.

The Americans and our own military seem not to grasp a simple idea: only free elections, without ISI/MI manipulation, can cut the mullahs down to size. Restricting the political field, while doing nothing for ‘enlightened moderation’, works to the mullahs’ advantage.

Does Musharraf have a strategy to get off the tiger’s back? None that is visible. His goal is another term in 2007. That he knows and we know. But precisely how he is going to achieve it neither he seems to know nor anyone else.