President Bush once called President/General Pervez Musharraf “a man of courage and vision” and repeatedly called him “a friend.” Now Mr. Bush apparently hopes the Pakistani leader will just go away quietly, without too much fuss.

Mr. Bush no longer needs his erstwhile friend now that the Pakistanis no longer want Musharraf to remain in office. The Bush administration is more concerned about the future of Pakistan than about Musharraf's future. Pakistan has become a ticking time bomb in the years since the former head of the Pakistan military seized power in a 1999 coup.

Foreign intelligence agencies believe Pakistan is now the world headquarters of Al Qaeda, and that Osama Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in the country, with or without the complicity of the Pakistani military intelligence services. Pakistan has also become the rear staging area for Taliban fighters who have been stepping up attacks in neighboring Afghanistan. Finally, Pakistani Taliban militants have been staging increasingly deadly suicide attacks in Pakistan itself – the latest in the city of Lahore, where they targeted a secret government intelligence facility that housed an American-trained anti-terrorist investigation unit. At least 27 people were killed and as many as 150 injured. All this is happening in a country that has not only acquired nuclear weapons but has been shown to be a serial proliferator of nuclear weapons secrets to several of America's enemies. And it is happening at a time when the country is going through a political crisis that has weakened Musharraf's hold on power and his ability to rein in the terrorists.

Lahore attack: most of the victims were killed in this building housing a federal agency

It is not surprising that the White House thinks it can no longer continue to back Musharraf. It wants him to go as soon as convenient, and if possible to go gracefully.

That may not be easy. The political parties that support him were resoundingly defeated in last month's parliamentary elections, but Musharraf wants to hang on to power. He tried to exploit differences between the parties that won the election - the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League-N of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. That didn't work. Now in what looks like a sign of desperation, he is offering to give up his most powerful political weapon – the right to dissolve parliament – if his opponents stop insisting on reinstating the former chief justice of the Supreme Court. Musharraf fired him last year when it looked as if the judge was about to declare the general's re-election as president unconstitutional. If the judge is reinstated, few doubt that he would immediately take up the case against Musharraf.

How Musharraf's mano a mano with his opponents will end is not yet clear. But what is clear is that he is now playing his end game. The London Daily Telegraph recently quoted an unnamed aide to Musharraf as saying he wants to leave the presidency on a positive note. Another aide confided that “while Musharraf made many mistakes, he genuinely strove to improve the country and does not want to damage it.”

It looks as if Musharraf faces the choice of stepping down voluntarily or being forced out in another crisis. The army is said to prefer a smooth transition, and is not likely to come to his rescue. It will back (and possibly broker) the new political coalition that takes over from the former general. The White House will breathe a sigh of relief. And it will continue to do business with the people who have held the real power in Pakistan since its independence from Britain – the military.