The United States is paying lip service to Prevez Musharraf's regime that is collapsing before its eyes, a top American expert has said and warned that a nuclear-armed and "terrorism-capable Pakistan will become everyone's biggest foreign policy problem".

While criticising Musharraf for not acting swiftly and ruthlessly to set Pakistan's politics on a proper course, Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, a known South Asia expert, praised him for his position on Kashmir.

"Under Musharraf, Pakistan's position has changed from insistence upon a plebiscite (something India will never allow) to one of several alternative arrangements, all designed to save face for Islamabad," he said.

However, he felt Musharraf does deserve criticism for the "deterioration" of Pakistani civil society and said that his "treatment of the press has been retrograde".

"Musharraf is widely viewed as a military strongman who should be pressed to hold free and fair elections this year. Both the characterisation of Musharraf and the policy recommendation are misguided," Cohen said in an op-ed piece titled "The Pakistan Time Bomb" in The Washington Post.

"Musharraf's problem is that he has failed to act swiftly and ruthlessly to set Pakistan's politics on a proper course, and he knows -- better than his critics -- that given the complexity of Pakistan's internal problems, the holding of free and fair elections might not check Pakistan's drift toward extremism," Cohen wrote.

Cohen said Musharraf "refused to allow former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to return to Pakistan and meet a real electoral test. And he fabricated a phony political party to provide illusion of popular support.

"It is Orwellian for American officials to claim that Pakistan is on the road to democracy," he said.

Musharraf receives "unstinting American support" because of his turnabout after September 11, 2001, regarding support for Taliban and al-Qaeda. "But there is room for skepticism about Pakistan's role with regard to the Taliban," he said.

"Whatever happens in coming days, we are not approaching the end of the 'Musharraf system' in Pakistan. Even if he were forced out of the presidency and ceased to be army chief, his military colleagues would continue to rule from behind the scenes, finding a pliable politician or two to serve as their public face.

"Abroad, they might get tougher with India (what better way to unite Pakistanis than a crisis with New Delhi?), and they would try to fake it with the Americans regarding Afghanistan: They will not willingly give up their Taliban assets," Cohen argued.

But, he said, "The army cannot rule the state of Pakistan by itself" and would need a "strategy for a systematic withdrawal from politics."

"The United States is paying lip service to a regime that is collapsing before its eyes and that may yet turn truly nasty. Washington treats Pakistan as if it were a Cold War ally, dealing only with its top leadership. The great danger is that this time around, Pakistan may not have the internal resources to manage its own rescue."

"If that is the case, then in years to come, a nuclear-armed and terrorism-capable Pakistan will become everyone's biggest foreign policy problem," he said.