Pervez Musharraf misrule of Pakistan during the past eight years is finally catching up with him. Yesterday the general’s army was engaged in the bloody siege of a mosque in Islamabad where pro-Taliban Islamic extremists have been defying his government’s authority; more than 20 people already have died in the siege. The rebellion began in January, but Mr. Musharraf refrained from taking on the militants until clashes erupted around the mosque last week — a strategy symptomatic of his tolerance for the growth of Islamic extremist movements. The general has had far less patience for the secular political parties and civil society groups that could be his allies in fighting the Talibanization of Pakistan. He has refused to allow two former civilian prime ministers to return from exile; he has bullied the media, rigged elections and tried to fire the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Consequently, the pressure the president now faces from Islamists is matched by a nationwide campaign against him by Pakistan’s moderate center. Last Monday a Supreme Court judge rejected the evidence that Mr. Musharraf presented against the dismissed jurist, who had been investigating political disappearances and seemed likely to resist the general’s attempt to […]