ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ¿ Strike fast, eliminate the enemy, and get out quickly.

President Pervez Musharraf, the former commando, often talks in those terms about operations against al Qaeda militants.

For the past few days Pakistan's military leader has taken somewhat similar action against troublesome judges under the cloak of emergency rule and suspension of the constitution.

"I have not learnt to surrender. I know how to face the situation. I never give in, I will confront," Musharraf said in an address to the nation on Saturday after taking steps to avoid any chance of a courtroom defeat that could have ended his rule.

The general's pre-emptive strike to rid himself of a Supreme Court bench that might have annulled his October 6 re-election victory has heightened uncertainties in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Some analysts reckon Musharraf has set off a chain of events he cannot control and will ultimately consume him, while others see him wounded but hanging on. Nobody sees him going easily.

"I think his problem is his own ego," said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution in Washington. "He's always seen himself as the saviour of Pakistan and the indispensable leader."

If Musharraf is damaged too badly and is unable to function properly as president or army chief, his own generals could ask him to step aside.

Under fire from Western allies and the international community, and with an angry Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's most popular and divisive opposition figure, now back in Islamabad, Musharraf appears to be hoping he can just replace the judges quickly, manage the politicians and make the whole mess go away.

The general's political right-hand man, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, told Dawn newspaper the emergency could be over in two to three weeks.

Other high-ranking officials say elections, which had been expected in January, will be held on schedule or slightly later.

Taking Musharraf at his word, and he has backtracked before, he is "determined" to quit as army chief and hold elections once his legal wrangles are resolved.

The trouble is that smashing the country's judiciary and muzzling the media ¿ television news channels were taken off the air ¿ will take an awful lot longer to fix.

They were hardly conducive circumstances for elections, which were never going to be free and fair so long as the party of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf deposed and exiled, was being suppressed.

Lawyers are up in arms, boycotting courts following the dismissal of judges such as chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who refused to go along with Musharraf's interpretation of the law.

Musharraf quoted Abraham Lincoln while justifying himself by saying a limb had to be sacrificed to save the nation.

Most Pakistanis believe Musharraf was rescuing himself from a possible adverse ruling by the Supreme Court hearing challenges to his re-election while still army chief last month.

The judges Musharraf has chosen to fill the empty benches are unlikely to inspire confidence.

Those judges can strike down the challenges that made the Supreme Court stop Musharraf declaring victory after his re-election by parliament in October. But analysts say they cannot restore his diminished moral authority or crumbling approval ratings.

Musharraf is safe, analysts say, so long as the army stays loyal, mass protests are contained and Western governments calculate that they need Musharraf to have any chance of defeating al Qaeda globally and of stabilising Afghanistan by crushing the Taliban.