Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's visit to the US and his meeting with President George W. Bush serves to illustrate a spectacular change of fortune for the one-time coup leader.
Since seizing power in 1999, General Musharraf has shown an unerring knack of choosing the right friends and seizing political opportunities when they arise. What he lacks in democratic credentials he has apparently made up for by sheer innate political acumen. And with an aplomb that can only invoke admiration, the Pakistani leader has embarked on a strategy to establish himself as a respectable leader and his country on the road to radical reform.
Certainly, this passage, from pariah state to an administration visited and embraced by those staunchest bastions of Western democratic values - the US and Britain - has been brought about partly by pure pragmatism: the tragedy of September 11; nevertheless it was still left for General Musharraf to choose the right direction when faced with political crossroads. The direction the President chose is epitomised by his switch from a preference for the formal military dress of his erstwhile career to the lounge suite - the standard uniform of internationally recognised politicians.
But General Musharraf knows that he still has some way to go. Domestically his position remains precarious and it remains to be seen whether he will, as promised, soon allow Pakistanis to choose their leader in free elections. The chances are that he will do so - but only when his political position is virtually unassailable.
The meetings with Mr Bush in the US will set the seal on his strategy. For General Musharraf it is pay back time. He wants continued US support to enhance his political legitimacy and he needs US cash to shore up Pakistan's ailing economy.
Thanks to his clear cut support for the US war on terrorism, his disowning of the Taleban and, more recently, his declaration to outlaw Islamic extremist groups within Pakistan, it is difficult to see how the US can refuse him either request.
