WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is working out a post-Musharraf arrangement in Pakistan that will partly address the democratic stirrings in the strife-torn country while preserving the primacy of the Pakistani military and its alliance with Washington.

Despite denials to the contrary, top US officials are currently engaged in direct intervention and negotiation aimed at stabilizing Pakistan's precarious internal situation arising from the confrontation between Gen.Musharraf and opposition forces.

Richard Boucher, Washington's pointman for the region, has gone so far as to meet with Pakistan's election commission officials to ensure a free, fair and transparent election that most observers feel will see Musharraf's minions defeated unless it is rigged. He has also met Pakistani opposition leaders to assure them of US support for democracy.

The former intelligence czar and state departments' No.2 John Negroponte is expected to follow up Boucher's visit this weekend.

In recent days, Washington has drawn the line in the sand that spells an end to Musharraf's strong-arm dictatorship. US officials said earlier this week that the Pakistani dictator has to seek re-election as President by a newly elected legislature -"“ not the outgoing legislature as Musharraf had planned in order to perpetuate his rule in case his minions lost.

Officials have also suggested they expect him to give up his uniform and return as a civilian president in case his party wins.

Musharraf, who had insisted that he can be elected by the outgoing legislature and described his uniform as his 'second skin,' has been silent about the new diktat from Washington.

Pakistan's normally vocal foreign office, ever sensitive to real or perceived outside pressure, has also been quiet about the politely-phrased decrees.

Some US analysts are starting to write Musharraf's political obituary. "The day of Musharraf's departure is imminent; he has simply made too many mistakes and burned too many bridges," the intelligence journal Stratfor said in a commentary on Thursday.

At least one analyst, former CIA deputy chief Rob Richer, went so far as to say Musharraf himself knows his time is up, and is "looking for an exit strategy." The Pakistani dictator is said to be searching for a successor "who supports the military but it won't necessarily be someone in uniform... a right-winger, someone who understands the Army."

Pakistan watchers also say Washington will ensure that that the military retains its primacy and that it will always have a direct line to it in a country where it has long been said it is ruled by an alliance of the three A/s: Allah, America and the Army.

Two top Pakistani generals, Ehsan Saleem Hayat, the army's vice chief of staff, and Ehsan ul-Haq, the chairman of the joint chiefs, have visited the United States in recent days as Washington has sought to assess the post-Musharraf scenario in the country.

"Put another way, the United States does not much care who runs Pakistan as long as there is stability in Islamabad," Stratfor said.

For weeks now, Musharraf's critics have said his fate hangs between a lamp-post and a retirement home in the United States. South Asia experts point out that no Pakistani military dictator has faded away quietly: they have either been ousted kicking and screaming or gone out in a puff of smoke. Musharraf, they say, might be lucky to be rescued by Uncle Sam.

The change in the Bush administration' s thinking comes amid a hammering it has been getting from the US media for perpetuating a military dictatorship in Pakistan at the expense of the country's democratic yearnings.

In recent days, several major newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and LA Times, have questioned the administration' s reliance on the Pakistani dictator, despite mounting evidence that his policies have been detrimental to US security.

"For years he (Musharraf) has sold Washington on the threat that without him Pakistan would descend into an Iran-style Islamic theocracy, exporting trouble and waving nuclear weaponry... But it may be time to call his bluff," The San Francisco Chronicle, the most recent of the papers to editorially blast the administration policy, said on Thursday.

Going by the US shuttle diplomacy in Pakistan, Washington might be doing just that.