Pakistan's Political Crisis and State of Emergency.

On November 3, 2007, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf suspended the country's constitution and assumed emergency powers in his role as both president and army chief. The move came just over eight years after Musharraf overthrew the elected government in a bloodless 1999 military coup. It followed months of political crisis in the capital city of Islamabad, along with sharply deteriorating security circumstances across the country. Musharraf has sought to justify this "second coup" as being necessary to save Pakistan from Islamist extremism and from a political paralysis he blamed largely on the country's Supreme Court. The United States, which had exerted diplomatic pressure on Musharraf to refrain from imposing a state of emergency, views Pakistan as a vital ally in global and regional counterterrorism efforts, and it has provided considerable foreign assistance to Pakistan since 2001, in part with the goal of facilitating a transition to democracy in Islamabad. In light of undemocratic developments that constitute a major setback for U.S. policy toward Pakistan, U.S. officials are reevaluating their approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]