PAKISTAN'S TENUOUS POLITICAL and security situation just got a whole lot worse. After days of rumors that President Pervez Musharraf would impose a state of emergency in the violence-wracked country, Musharraf followed through on Saturday in a move that is likely to plunge the county into further political turmoil and provide an opening for the Taliban and al Qaeda to consolidate their gains in Pakistan's northwest tribal areas.

In what Pakistan's English language news organization Dawn called "General Musharraf's Second Coup," Musharraf deployed units of the paramilitary Rangers throughout the capital on Saturday just prior to declaring the state of emergency. The constitution was suspended and replaced by a Provisional Constitutional Order. In an attempt to control the flow of information, communications inside Islamabad were shut down--telephone service was interrupted, cable stations, and news organizations were ordered off the air.

Musharraf then moved against Pakistan's Supreme Court, his primary political enemy over the past year. The Supreme Court building in Islamabad was quickly surrounded. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and seven other justices declared the state of emergency "illegal and unconstitutional" and pleaded with the powerful army corps commanders, the military and civilian leadership, to reject the oath of Musharraf's new constitution.

Chaudhry, along with hundreds of political opposition leaders, lawyers, and members of the media have since been arrested. Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association and an influential member of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's party, was also arrested along with Hamid Gul, the former leader of Pakistan's infamous Inter Services Intelligence agency and architect of the Taliban movement.

Upon hearing the news of the imposition of the state of emergency, Benazir Bhutto boarded a plane in the United Arab Emirates and landed in Karachi. Bhutto was met at the airport by police and was escorted to her home, which remains surrounded by government forces.

In his address to the nation, Musharraf cited the rise in terrorist attacks, the creeping power of Pakistan's Supreme Court, and an economic downturn as the reasons for taking such drastic action. "Pakistan is on the verge of destabilization," Musharraf declared. But the reasoning behind Musharraf's imposition of a state of emergency is more likely due to his weakening political situation, not the rise of Islamist militancy in the country.

Musharraf's usurpation has weakened, not strengthened his ability to fight the dramatic rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda in the Northwest Frontier Province, Baluchistan, and elsewhere. National unity and political consensus is needed to fight the rising threat of militancy sweeping across Pakistan, yet the state of emergency has pushed Musharraf's potential political allies into the opposition, weakening support for the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Militarily, Musharraf has focused his energy on quelling the political opposition, which will detract from his ability to tackle the increasing radicalism. And to is unclear what effect, if any, the state of emergency will have on the sagging morale of the Pakistani military and police, which have performed poorly in the tribal areas of Waziristan and the settled district of Swat. Soldiers have been captured by the hundreds and surrendered or deserted by the dozens. The Taliban has beheaded well over a dozen soldiers and policemen. The Pakistani military also boasts an inordinately high number of Pashtuns in its security forces, many whom are sympathetic to the Islamists. Other Pakistani soldiers resent the thought of fighting what they perceive as an American war against their own citizens.