Don't sell Sharif short

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Presidents don't always get to choose the events that forge their legacies. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's return next week to Pakistan illustrates the point. How the White House handles this twist in Pakistan's political transition from military rule to democracy is crucial to U.S. strategic interests in the region.

Mr. Sharif served as Pakistan's prime minister before Gen. Pervez Musharraf's 1999 coup. The background to the coup was that Mr. Sharif at President Clinton's urging had begun to restrict Pakistan's semi-covert aid to Kashmiri guerrillas. This prompted unrest within the military. In a deadly game of brinkmanship, Mr. Sharif denied President Musharraf's aircraft landing rights as it circled low on fuel. Religiously conservative elements within Pakistan's military rallied to the general, as photo analysis of the troop cordon around him during the early hours of the coup reveals. Trumped-up charges were brought against Mr. Sharif in a kangaroo court but settled with a deal that exiled him to Saudi Arabia, where he has lived for the past seven years.

Last month, Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Mr. Sharif can return to Pakistan, upending Gen. Musharraf's plans to retain control. This was the latest round in a bout between Gen. Musharraf and Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry that began with the general's failed attempt to oust the chief justice.

The politically inept move ignited widespread civil protest led by Pakistani lawyers. As a result, Gen. Musharraf's power base has narrowed to a needle-point. To survive politically, the general is negotiating — apparently with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's blessing — to share power with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Make no mistake — the events that will begin unfolding next week in Pakistan are crucial moves in the Great Game. Vital U.S. interests are at stake. How President Bush responds will have as great an impact on his legacy as Iraq, because success in defeating al Qaeda hinges more on Pakistan than any other country.

It is a mistake for the United States to endorse the Musharraf-Bhutto end-run on Pakistani democracy. It would be an even worse mistake for the CIA to provide covert assistance to buy votes for the Musharraf-Bhutto alliance in the upcoming presidential election, which will take place in the legislature.

Now is the time to maintain a scrupulously level playing field and to treat Mr. Sharif with the respect he is due — in fact, overdue — from U.S. officials. This posture has the added advantage of advancing Mr. Bush's democracy agenda. To do otherwise risks further alienation, potentially pushing Mr. Sharif toward conservative Saudi supporters or even China, which may seek to curry favor with him to counter U.S. moves in India.

I was an adviser to Mr. Sharif when he was chief minister of the Punjab and preparing to run against then-Prime Minister Bhutto. Then, as now, there was war in Afghanistan. Terrorist problems were widespread across the subcontinent. Many were perpetrated by the Afghan WAD (secret police) under the tutelage of their Soviet patrons, the KGB.

One such attack killed the American ambassador, a U.S. general and then-president Muhammad Zia. There were widespread suspicions of KGB involvement. Both the CIA and the FBI probed the incident. Mrs. Bhutto's brother was involved in the terrorist group suspected of masterminding the attack. Yet when U.S. officials presented Mrs. Bhutto with compelling evidence of her brother's terrorist activities she rejected it out of hand.

This precedent alone ought to call into question any U.S. reliance on Mrs. Bhutto as an ally against terrorism. But during her university days at Harvard and Oxford, Mrs. Bhutto cultivated many supporters among the political elite. She is a familiar commodity in Washington and London. American political consultants, mainly Democrats, have served as Mrs. Bhutto's advisers in a range of causes and capacities. This makes her the default choice of American officials who haven't thought deeply about the alternatives.

Mr. Sharif, by contrast, is little understood in the West. Ten years before the 1999 coup, a U.S. official asked me if Mr. Sharif was a puppet of Pakistan's military. I answered that if the military thought they controlled him, they were in for a surprise because of his political independence and reform agenda.

The media describe Mr. Sharif as an "industrialist." In fact, he comes from an entrepreneurial family. Unlike the Bhutto dynasty, which springs from Pakistan's landed aristocracy, the Sharif family fortune is self-made. His father created the family business from a humble machine shop outside the walls of Lahore's old city.

Unless the Nawaz Sharif I know changed during exile in Saudi Arabia, he is a modernizer, a Reagan admirer and a devout Muslim with a modern vision for Islam. America could do far worse than to have such an ally.

The coming weeks will determine which way Pakistan goes. Mr. Sharif's return is one of those surprising twists with the potential to shape history, often dimly perceived at the time, but of transcendent importance.

John B. Roberts II served in the Reagan White House. He writes often on terrorism and national security.