Military attaches from the United States and several other western nations are discreetly contacting senior Pakistani generals and asking them to press President Pervez Musharraf [Images] to back down from the emergency decree amid fears that sustained popular unrest may turn the army against him.

But for the time being, the New York Times says, Bush administration officials are unanimous in saying that American financial support for Pakistan will continue regardless of whether General Musharraf reverses course.

A senior White House official was quoted as saying that President Bush still held out hope that American pressure could persuade General Musharraf to reconsider his moves. That approach, the official said, was 'Option No 1, No 2, and No 3.'

But American support for General Musharraf himself is not limitless, several administration officials privately told the Times.

'We want to believe he will come around, and are giving him every opportunity to change his actions, but our verbal support is not going to last for very long,' a senior administration official was quoted as saying.

Among Western diplomats, the paper says there is rising concern that Musharraf's declaration is also damaging the standing of the Pakistani Army as an institution, which has long been seen as the force holding the country together.

Rumblings of discontent with Musharraf exist in the armed forces, but they are far from reaching the point where the army's senior generals would turn against him, Western officials and Pakistani analysts were quoted as saying.

But they say sustained popular unrest against General Musharraf could cause the army to turn on him.

'It is the concern about how the military retains its position as an institution of national respect,' said a Western diplomat, adding, 'These kinds of things can be damaging to the institution, the respect for the institution and also the morale.'

Western officials, the paper says, have also begun praising Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, General Musharraf's designated successor as army chief.

Kiyani, a moderate, pro-American infantry commander, is widely seen as commanding respect within the army and, within Western circles, as a potential alternative to General Musharraf.

'He is somebody we know well, and he is tough on Al Qaeda [Images],' said one Bush administration official who works on Pakistan issues told the paper.

Known as a 'soldier's soldier,' General Kayani rarely mixes with politicians and is not thought to have used previous senior postings 'including heading the country's powerful military intelligence service' to expand his own wealth and contacts, the Times said.

Twice in Pakistan's history, senior generals have asked military rulers to resign when their popularity faded and their rule was viewed as damaging to the army as a whole, according to American and Pakistani experts on the Pakistani military.

They said General Musharraf could find himself in that position as well.

In a sign of the closeness between Benazir Bhutto [Images] and Washington, the opposition leader met after her news conference with the American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W Patterson.

The perception among Pakistani analysts is that Bhutto is being guided by Washington.

'She's listening to the Americans, no one else,' said Najam Sethi, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Times.
 
In a telling sign of this mood, the Times said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, chairman of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, was booed when we walked into a gathering of lawyers who were preparing to demonstrate in Lahore [Images] on Monday morning. 'They yelled at him and called him a collaborator,' a lawyer at the scene was quoted as saying.