For more than five decades Pakistan’s military rulers have depended on the country’s judiciary to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy for their arbitrary decisions. Last week’s judgment by the Supreme Court to restore Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as chief justice, and General Musharraf’s decision to remove him from office as unlawful, brings to an end that arrangement between the courts and the military.

The Supreme Court ruling weakens an embattled Musharraf further and demonstrates the unwillingness of Pakistan’s civilians to endlessly obey the military’s commands.

Musharraf now has two options. He could recognise the emerging reality and initiate a process of national reconciliation that allows civilian institutions to function independently within their respective spheres. Or he could persist with the doctrine of the military’s supremacy that has polarised Pakistan along several lines. Musharraf recently told newspaper editors that he believed in “unified command”, which indicates that he has yet to understand how he and his military predecessors have obstructed the emergence of a consensus system of governance that absorbs differences within society without widespread resort to violence and tearing the country apart.

Musharraf sees no contradiction in his assertion that Pakistan is in a state of war with Islamist extremists and his desire to have his way on all issues big or small. Nor has he done anything to overcome any of Pakistan’s divisions to focus exclusively on fighting terrorists and militants.

For Musharraf, Pakistan’s politicians and their alleged petty corruptions — or a dozen other things he dislikes about Pakistani civilians — are as much the enemy as terrorism. He has not hesitated to use force against ethnic political groups refusing to toe the line, while allowing his allies a free hand in unleashing violence against his opponents. Pakistan is polarised between rich and poor, Islamist and secularist, pro-military and pro-civilian rule. Ethnic divisions not only persist, they seem to have aggravated over the last eight years.

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