Above all, it considers such an arrangement unacceptable to Afghanistan's Pushtuns, the country's historic rulers and biggest group, who are close cousins of its Pushtuns in the tribal lands and NWFP.
The MMA runs the two volatile provinces of Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier (NWFP), but parted ways with General Musharraf two years ago when, under American prodding, he sent the army to attack al-Qaeda elements "hosted" by the religious parties in the tribal borderlands.
To help keep the Mehsud fighters out of NWFP, it has armed militants of the small Bhittani tribe, despised by the Mehsud.
They had come to Dera Ismail Khan, in the "settled area" of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) that borders Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt, to escape an army assault on the local Taliban.
His coalition runs the NWFP government and is part of a ruling coalition in Baluchistan, the other province abutting the colonial-era border, the Durand Line.
Ali Jan Orakzai, the governor of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), had promoted the deal, arguing that the campaign "threatened the stability of the rest of the country".
In NWFP, a Taliban promotional video is widely available.
They had risen to power in NWFP, and shared it in Baluchistan, boosted by outrage at America's invasion of Afghanistan.
American officials have also, more discreetly, criticised a vaguely comparable deal struck by British commanders with tribal leaders in the Musa Qala district in Afghanistan.Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai, a retired general who is the governor of NWFP and negotiated the Waziristan deal, was said to be "stunned" by the madrassa attack.
The PPP, for example, has little support in NWFP or the tribal areas.Blundering, incompetent and compulsively dictatorial as General Musharraf has turned out to be, this is why America is unlikely to withdraw much support from him.
EARLIER this year more than 1.5m residents of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) fled their homes to escape fighting between the army and Islamist militants.
