General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s military ruler, carried out a second coup d’état at the weekend in a desperate attempt to cling to power and prolong his destabilising rule. His reasons for imposing a state of emergency are threadbare – a cynical attempt to blackmail Washington and other western capitals into justifying his action as a regrettable price to be paid for fighting Islamist extremism.

That is wholly bogus. Gen Musharraf is not acting to protect his country – or even as an effective subcontractor in the US administration’s “war on terror”. This move is to protect his power from judicial and political challenge.