Left Flank

If deportation is a form of respect for a writer's touching a nerve, then Nicolas Schmidle must have spoken truth to power. Schmidle's feature on the messy alliance between the Taliban's godfather, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, and the Next-Gen Taliban comes with both a plea for democracy and an indictment of President Pervez Musharraf.

I asked Rehman, who used to refer to the Taliban as «our boys,» if he still considered the Taliban, even those who might be firing rockets at his house, his boys. «Definitely,» he replied. «But because of America's policies, they have gone to the extreme. I am trying to bring them back into the mainstream. We don't disagree with the mujahedeen's cause, but we differ over priorities. They prefer to fight, but I believe in politics.»

Mushahid Hussain, secretary general of the pro-Musharraf faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, told me that no one can negotiate the politics of the North-West Frontier Province better than Rehman. «We know that we need a bearded, turbaned guy out there,» Hussain told me. It is perhaps a measure of how inextricable Islamism and politics have become in Pakistan that even the United States would deal with an anti-American like Rehman. In September, he had the first meeting of his 30-year political career with an American ambassador. What did Rehman and Anne Patterson, the American envoy, discuss? «She urged me to form an electoral alliance with Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf,» he told me a few days after the meeting. «I am not against it. But politically, because of the American presence in Afghanistan and rising extremism, it is a bit hard for us to afford.» Plus, the fact that the Americans thought Bhutto could tackle the Taliban had simply baffled him. «She has no strategy in those areas, and nothing to do with those people,» he said.

When asked if Patterson's meeting signaled a change in American attitudes, an embassy spokeswoman said it «reflects our approach to democratic politics in Pakistan» and was «part of a process of talking to all those who represent political movements in Pakistan, across the spectrum.» The U.S. has given more than $5 billion to Pakistan in the past few years to fight Islamist militants, but recent reports suggest that the aid has not been effective. Late last month, Congress put restrictions on some military aid and called for the restoration of democratic rights.

Even after the Bhutto assassination, Rehman told me he would stay in the election — although, as he put it, «the reality is that this is complete anarchy, and no one can run a campaign.»

Schmidle discusses these issues and returning to the US with his wife after receiving his walking papers from a motorcycle-equipped ISI agent. Washington, is it time to turn a page?