Pakistan International Airlines flight 786 has just taken off from London’s Heathrow Airport heading toward Islamabad. Sitting in its business class is exiled, deposed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Should things go as planned on his side, Nawaz will have returned to Pakistan Monday morning local time for the first time in seven years.

The Musharraf government failed in preventing Sharif’s departure for Pakistan. The Supreme Court ruled that Sharif had an “inalienable right” to return and stay in his country. Yesterday, Lebanon’s Saad Hariri and Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz came to Islamabad and called on Sharif to complete the remaining three years of his 10-year exile deal. Sharif replied that he originally made an oral agreement for a 5-year exile and consented to a subsequent 10-year deal on paper only after receiving assurances the time period would be reduced.

Musharraf’s remaining options are far messier. He can:
- prevent the flight’s arrival in Pakistan;
- re-route Sharif’s flight to a more isolated city in Pakistan (e.g. Peshawar);
- arrest Sharif and jail him in Attock, detain him in Murree, or deport him to another country;
- or not interfere with Sharif’s movement at all.

Without a doubt, Musharraf’s challenging Sharif’s flight arrival in Islamabad will eerily resemble Sharif’s handling of the general’s flight to Karachi, which allegedly helped precipitate Musharraf’s coup.

The path chosen by Musharraf remains to be seen, but what can be said with some certainty is that it will have considerable endorsement from Washington. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher met with Musharraf yesterday. The visit was days earlier than scheduled and made without the knowledge of many senior Pakistani officials. There is speculation in Pakistan that the Bush administration is against Nawaz’s return. This view will receive significant validation should Musharraf take a hardline against Nawaz on Monday—two days after the visit of a senior American diplomat and three days after the State Department called for restraint by Sharif and Bhutto without offering the former support despite Islamabad’s threats against him.

Why would the Bush administration want Nawaz out of the country—at least for the time being? The simple answer is that Sharif’s return poses the greatest challenge to the Bhutto-Musharraf alliance, encouraged by Washington, which sees it as a liberal bulwark against a rising militant and anti-American tide in the country.

A Bhutto-Musharraf alliance leaves Nawaz Sharif, as well as many in the king’s party (PML-Q), in the cold. Their best remaining option could be to create a counter-alliance, much like Sharif’s ISI-backed Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) of the 90s, of rightists, nationalists, Islamists, and other assorted anti-Musharraf characters. Together, they can create a political alliance that, along with an increasingly assertive judiciary and civil society, can challenge the bases of Musharraf’s hold on power and potential deal with Bhutto. Not only would such a movement put Musharraf’s tenure at risk, it would also discredit Bhutto and her fellow liberals, push Pakistan toward greater instability, and place Washington’s interests in the country at serious risk.

In fact, Bhutto’s fear of being discredited by an increasingly unpopular and volatile Musharraf might prevent her from finalizing a power-sharing accord with the Pakistani president. Negotiating with Bhutto has caused a strong backlash within her own party and watered down her democratic credentials. Her strongly pro-American and anti-terror talking points in U.S. may also come to haunt her in Pakistan, where she might be seen as an American lackey like her potential partner, “Busharraf.” She could decide in the coming days against a deal with Musharraf in order to salvage her political career. Should she do that and fail to come to terms with Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s polity could head toward greater fracture and instability.

Washington’s hope in a Bhutto-Musharraf alliance is misguided. What Pakistan really needs is an accord that unites all of its elites and power-brokers on a transitional governance framework and a national agenda facing the country’s many problems. Its promotion of a deal between Benazir and Musharraf has largely been quiet and behind-the-scenes, but is a badly-kept secret. And its silence on Nawaz’s return speaks loudly, casting a negative light on its policy toward Pakistan and discrediting a liberal agenda in the country.

Washington cannot play favorites among Pakistan’s politicians. That’s the prerogative of the people of Pakistan. Such behavior counters Washington’s interests in the country anyway by discrediting pro-American figures and making anti-Americanism even more mainstream and a political rallying point. Washington should let Pakistan’s institutions and power brokers settle its crisis of governance, giving a friendly push toward a broad consensus including friends and foes. This seemingly passive strategy ensures that its friends are in power, rather than out on their asses.