President Pervez Musharraf's political and diplomatic allies have maintained a complete mum at a time when he is being attacked left, right and center by his adversaries, leaving no option for him but to stand down. These allies especially the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) hugely benefited from their alignment with Musharraf for over eight years. PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has gone abroad in connection with his periodical medical checkup. The other top party leader, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, is more concerned about taking on the government for scrapping the Kalabagh Dam project rather than defending beleaguered Musharraf. A senior PML-Q leader just smiled when asked why they have simply ‘abandoned' the president and are not coming to his rescue. He promised to call back but didn't. Some other PML-Q leaders this correspondent tried to contact in order to elicit their response to the renewed onslaught on the president preferred to remain silent. PML-Q Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Sayed is also abroad as part of a parliamentary delegation. He has stopped defending Musharraf, and has instead been showing reservations over his certain policies. A large battalion of PML-Q and MQM federal and provincial legislators has preferred not to counter the mounting attack, mainly emanating from the PML-N stalwarts, on the president. “Our defense of the president may not matter much as the support of the Pakistan Army and Washington to Musharraf will be the real factor in deciding his fate,” a PML-Q leader said. “If they too dumped him, he would have to go.” In the past, senior US officials always made telling public remarks whenever they sensed their ally was in deep trouble. These were meant to salvage the president's position and tell the political leadership that it should forget about getting rid of him in the immediate future. Washington has been silent for quite some when the president has come under increasing pressure. Even the visit of US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte that was expected to break the lingering logjam with a view to get Musharraf out of the tight spot has to be called off. The recent meetings of different delegations of American lawmakers with Pakistani leaders have not been helped the president as well. Rather, during their presence in Pakistan some American senators harshly disparaged Musharraf. US support reassured National Security adviser to the US President Stephen Hadley has phoned National Security Council Secretary Tariq Aziz and assured that Washington would continue to support President Pervez Musharraf, officials said. Their conversation lasted for about 30 minutes. They discussed the war on terror and the rapidly changing political situation in Pakistan. Hadley had also expressed US concerns over Musharraf's possible resignation. __
