Well, 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds', the great American essayist Emerson said, back in the 19th century.

America supports non-proliferation but we wouldn't want foolish consistency for Israel (they've got one heck of a powerful support group in America), nor yet for democracy as far as Saudi Arabia goes. Hey, they've got oil!

As for Pakistan, the French say it well: plus ca la meme chose or 'the more things change the more things stay the same'.

Chaos, moves toward democracy, army chief declares 'state of emergency,' which as for martial law is a distinction without a difference. America laments emergency rule, then, surprise, it says it won't cut off aid.

For the past year Washington has been pressing President Pervez Musharraf to 'restore' democracy and build his domestic base, so he can turn the Islamic fundamentalists who rule more than half of Pakistan into toast.

It arm-twisted him into permitting Benazir Bhutto back, and mind-twisted her into going along with a power-sharing agreement with him. It was pretty far from what Freud would call the reality check.

And it's all so 1950s. Pakistan started as a great severed arm from the Indian Union and had a complex at the start. Democracy never had a very secure base. The military intervened in 1958 and junked the politicians, if only because they had a secure source of funding from Washington and, well, it's fun to rule a country.

Since then it's been up and down like a see-saw. 'Democracy' is restored, the politicians overplay their hand, democracy doesn't get a secure hold, and the generals strike again.

Something needs to be clear at the start. Whether one likes what Musharraf did, the alternatives have to be considered. Pakistan is close to being a failed state, despite its impressive economic growth and committed world of NGOs, democratic believers, and mainstream Muslims.

Letting one's state fall apart is not something that a leader can contemplate. Maybe he can plant the seeds for something better, maybe the chaotic state of affairs is his own creation (as his opposition now states), but one starts from where one is at the moment, and asks to how to make things better. They couldn't be worse.

About democracy

There's always a lot of drum beating about democracy, but some facts are in order. No democratic system has ever emerged out of chaos. True, sometimes 'order' can be imposed or subsumed from beyond, and a form of democracy emerges.

Japan after World War II, still stunned, almost mesmerised, by its humiliation, did what it knew it had to do to appease its conqueror, and devised a top-down democracy that satisfied the occupying power.

As a rule, true democracy has emerged slowly, over centuries, at least generations, not as a template but as a process, by which groups discover that there's more to gain from a win-win compromise than from a zero-sum game.

In the third world, most of the successful democracies emerged from British rule, which didn't as such 'require' democracy as much as inadvertently display it in its own inner workings, as pro- and anti-colonial movements fought it out in London. And for some reason, elites in states like Malta, Malaysia, and most conspicuously India, found it useful to apply what had been learned by way of tolerance and compromise. There was luck too, in such states.

Much as America was blessed at its creation by a lucky cluster of world-class thinkers and leaders, the successful developing countries had serious statesmanlike nationalists.

Tunku Abdul Rahman ( left ) had autocratic tendencies but he knew better and left Malaysia with a tradition that even Dr Mahathir Mohamad ( right ) at his worst couldn't buck. And for that matter, Mahathir was one of the wisest leaders any such state had for its second stage, masterfully steering its rapid economic growth. India had Nehru, and that's all that needs saying.

'Wise tradition' lacking

Back to Pakistan. Mohamed Ali Jinnah wasn't around long after independence before he dropped dead and there was no wise tradition to carry on. Officers were gentlemen, however, and they carried on. Politicians played a zero-sum game. Only recently have there been enough groups with a genuine commitment to pluralism to from a critical mass within parties working for a stable democracy.

The only point now is that Pakistan was headed for absolute disaster. It is the cradle of Al Qaeda, which controls much of its eastern provinces. Suicide bombs, riots, constant demonstrations along with constant assassination attempts against the president - you can't even discuss democracy in such an environment.

What was Musharraf supposed to do? Hand over power to Bhutto, in hopes that she could be even more iron-fisted than he? What's that got to do with democracy?

I think the world has got to stop hypocritically applying standards to Pakistan that just don't apply. In 60 years it hasn't found its bearings. It has only recently started to get over its hang-ups about India.

Challenges to its coherence have never been sharper. Islamic fundamentalists have a strangle-hold that isn't going to let up on nice words. Nor are the IF's going to support democracy, unless for the devious reason that they might see a temporarily democratic Pakistan easier to topple out of its weakness.

Alas Machiavelli has always been right. A glint of steel is forever at least an unstated side of successful leadership. Nice guys on a tough street don't last long. Give Musharraf a chance. As military leaders go, especially in the Pakistani context, he's about as good as they come.

He's educated, he is a cultivated and thoughtful person, and he can't be blamed for wanting to avoid the destruction of his country.

It's not as if he's acting without precedent; it's the alternative, which so many are demanding, that's without precedent.

W SCOTT THOMPSON, a presidential appointee in four American presidencies, is the author of 11 books on politics. He is adjunct professor at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Massachusetts.