Islamabad, June 16: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf embarks today on a tour of four of the west's most powerful nations, leaving behind a raging battle with fundamentalists and a crippling deadlock with the opposition over his self-declared rule. General Musharraf, the Army Chief who stole power in a 1999 coup and has refused to relinquish it, is heading to Britain, the United States, France and Germany on a trip that climaxes with June 24 talks at Camp David with President George W. Bush.
He will also meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
New trade initiatives, aid pledges, current peace moves with India, post-war Iraq and rebuilding Afghanistan will top the agenda.
But more than anything else, this trip is crucial to his political survival, analysts say.
"By going to the US, he's looking for approval for an extended lease of life, since there's a political stalemate at home," political commentator Aqil Shah told.
Musharraf is under fire on multiple fronts.
Opposition parties and lawyers are fuming at the powers he has awarded himself and the military, religious hardliners are enraged at his tirade against their Islamisation program, Muslim militants see him as a traitor on Kashmir and a sellout to the United States. Bureau Report