Happy Trails, Pervez

[Political Waves]

Pakistan -- where's the press on this puppy? Russia Russia Russia China China China 24/7 has got us by the nose while the hottest spot on the map goes into meltdown. Some are saying ... Look! They impeached THEIR dictator, why can't we? Good question.

Remaining to be seen is what happens in the transition phase -- if we think cronyism, religious extremism and corruption is bad in the US of A we just need a glance at Pakistan's internals to sober us up. Interesting that the cradle of terrorism is up for grabs, and Kashmir floats in the cross-hairs, while everyone's looking hither, thither and yon; everywhere but at the smoldering gas can with the rag on the top.

I've collected a few reads for you -- there should be more; they haven't shown up. Juan Cole writes a good piece; MSM is toward the bottom. There are two Larisa Alexandrovna blog posts here: the first is pre-resignation, the second, post-. She has the same concerns I have , but we're hearing little about them. Certainly the Bushies don't want to weigh in and get slimed with "dictator echo."

As despots go, Musharraf was a well-spoken, clever military dictator -- who knows what comes next. It may ... or may not ... play well for US interests. Freedom is messy business, especially during a Neptune transit. Who Pakistan gets to be when they grow up is up to them; same can be said for us.

The Obama/McCain smackdown continues to deaden our brainpans. But I get weary with the suggestion that we're in a "silly season" of campaigning; McCain says or does something outrageous, Obama responds to it ... and MSM says "the candidates" are up to silliness.

No, that would be ONE of the candidates ... the one that would sell Cindy, Sedona and his BBQ secrets in a hot minute to sit in the Oval Office. The one who said he was in the "cone of silence" but wasn't and who borrows [or his computer-savvy assistants do, anyway] heavily from "the Google" in order to invent his policy and mythology.

Goddess! What happened to honest reporting?? Kudo's, at least, to Andrea Mitchell and NBC.

The new books keep coming: Mike Moore's Election Guide 2008 has just released. Obama's latest offering, Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise will come out in paperback [great idea, eh?] September 9th [advanced purchase at the link] and a new Woodward offering, titled The War Within is set to expose more insiders view of rush to war [White House thinks it will help them ... I think if Big Bob had something important to say about that, he might have put it in book #1 or #2 -- doncha think?]

And if any of you saw the crackerjack piece on Moyers last Friday with Andrew Bacevich, his book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism is no doubt a pip.
[Most of these book links are to BuzzFlash reviews and ordering info --support a Lefty.]

The Rick Warren religious debates showed us silliness of a different stripe ... not just how far we've come in terms of being able to talk about this stuff, and a new willingness of Evangelicals to come to terms with some of it -- but also how hollow much of it rings. I seldom use the word 'evil' except in a conceptual, literary sense -- I expect it's productive to have a discussion about it; too bad we didn't have one. The Warren interviews were a vetting for the Christocrats, campaigning to those 'washed in the blood of the lamb.' Meanwhile, the world is just ... awash in blood.

Obama is readying himself for a Veep pick -- perhaps on Friday. In the running, Bayh, Biden, Kaine, Sibelius and ... long shot ... Clinton. Each has an Achilles Heel, i.e., in order: pro-corporate, pro-military, pro-life, pro-woman [but she's not Hillary!] and pro-Bill [yikes! Can't somebody MUZZLE this Big Dog?]

Biden is getting a lot of attention, due to his trip to Georgia under the Obama umbrella -- blogger Michael Tomasky says that if its Joe, we'll know early because he won't be able to keep his mouth shut; Joe's a "blurter." Maybe another reason that Obama is keeping it to himself 'til the last possible moment.

Meanwhile, Barack has tacked hard into McRib's wake ... but I doubt it will make any waves with Mac's faithful -- as the aforementioned Mr. Tomasky mentions, the Pub's are character assassins and that's what they understand; if we want the faithful to pay attention, we have to go after Johnny Mac's character [which is as full of holes as Swiss cheese.] It's dirty politics -- but that's the Neo-American Way ... and another reason why we need an aggressive VP to bite and snarl.

Best snark of the day is the AP memo accidently leaving in the snippit calling Joe Lieberman a prick. Yeah, huh! Couldn't have said it better myself!

Note: I'll be around in the next couple of weeks, but likely not on a daily basis; challenges on the home front and downsizing projects are requiring attention. You know my rule -- if there's 'pretzel news' of any sort, I'll jump in. Otherwise, you'll see me when you see me.

Jude


Serious crisis in Pakistan (crickets in DC)
Larisa Alexandrovna, at-Largely
8/17/08
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/08/serious-crisis.html

We are in a catch 22 of epic proportions with regard to Pakistan. First the latest:

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan showed continued defiance to threats of impeachment Sunday, saying through aides that he wanted to see the formal charges before making any decision on leaving office.

Musharraf, a former general, is known as a fighter by instinct, and colleagues said that, as his career seemed poised to end in indignity, he was determined not to bend to politicians whom he has long viewed with disdain.

Behind the scenes, negotiations between representatives of Musharraf and the governing coalition on an exit strategy that would satisfy both sides proceeded over the weekend.

At the core of the talks is a demand by Musharraf for immunity from prosecution if he leaves office before the impeachment proceedings begin.

The negotiations were bogged down, according to a senior official in the coalition, over the legal technicalities of when the immunity would be granted.

Apparently he has learned much from Nixon. The article continues:

The four-month-old civilian government composed of two major political parties - the Pakistan People's Party headed by Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan Muslim League-N led by Nawaz Sharif - announced 10 days ago that they would bring impeachment charges against Musharraf.

The grounds of impeachment revolved around violations of the Constitution when Musharraf declared a state of emergency in November and fired 60 judges under that decree. The chief instigator of the impeachment movement is Sharif, who Musharraf deposed as prime minister in 1999 and then banished to Saudi Arabia.

The minister of information, Sherry Rehman, said Sunday that the charges against Musharraf had been completed and would be presented to Parliament next week. She gave no specific date.

Now why is this a catch 22 for us? That is to say a catch 22 of epic proportions for us? Two major reasons: terrorism and the nuclear black market.

Al Qaeda:

Instead of going after nations directly involved in funding terrorism and/or training, housing, or arming terrorist, the Bush administration moved against Iraq. Now, if you do not understand the role of Pakistan in terrorism, I will give you a very small summary.

The radical elements of the Pakistani ISI (their intelligence services) have long been directly involved with funding and training members of Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. It is a state within a state as a shadow government of Pakistan.

Some of the very camps used to train ISI officers double as training camps for extremist elements. It is in fact through the very effort of the ISI that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden came to power. In addition to this, the Saudi regime looks to the ISI radical elements to keep Al Qaeda out of Saudi Arabia. The latter accomplishes by funneling money, arms, and drugs through the ISI pipeline of pay-offs and fronts. One of the biggest scandals of this arrangement was called the BCCI scandal.

But just to give you an idea of how close the ISI is to terrorism, consider the following example.

The head of the ISI on September 11, 2001 was Mahmud Ahmed. He quietly resigned when it was discovered that he had wired $100k to the alleged 9/11 ring-leader, Mohamed Atta prior to the attacks. Ahmed had the transaction carried out for him by a man named Ahmad Umar Sheikh, who later goes on to murder WSJ reporter Danny Pearle.

In another stunning example, consider the following fact. When we, the US, cornered Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, it was the Pakistani ISI that air lifted him and his fellow terrorists out.

Currently, Al Qaeda resides and trains within Pakistan. Obviously, all of this was a good idea (snark) to make Pakistan a partner in the war on terror (slogan war). So instead of conducting an actual war on Al Qaeda, the Bush administration cooked evidence for a war with Iraq.

Musharraf is both a demon and an angel in this equation. He is a dictator and the ISI is strongly allied with him. Yet he makes attempts to give US access to Al Qaeda intelligence. He plays all sides to stay in power, but he keeps all sides from exploding as well. If he is out, who will the ISI install next and will the newly created government allow the ISI's shadow government to continue? Remember, a civil war is bad, but a civil war in the same country housing both Al Qaeda and nukes, is really bad.

Nuclear Proliferation:

The major arms proliferateor in the region is Pakistan, whose ISI often doubles as arms and drug dealers. The main cell of proliferation for many years has been the circle of Dr. AQ Khan. Even though Khan is considered a national hero for his advances of Pakistani nuclear program, he is also an arms dealer in a black markets whose clients are our main enemy: terrorists.

Now the ISI will continue to run the arms black-market with or without Musharraf. But there are serious issues should there be a civil war or with regard to who will replace him.

So Now:

So now that that the Bush administration has rallied all terrorists everywhere under a single banner, allowed Al Qaeda to grow stronger and better trained, and depleted US abilities (militarily, financially, and diplomatically) to do anything for our actual national security (not the black hole box known as Department of Homeland Security, whose only job it appears is to give out lucrative contracts to Bush cronies), has alienated our allies, allowed Russia-China to blossom into a lethal power structure, and threatened Iran (not to mention attempting to start a war several times), a civil war or any serious power structure threat in another country - especially Pakistan - is a threat of epic proportions.

Forget the Russian-Georgian conflict for a moment. Forget Iraq for a moment. Forget everything for one moment and understand, that if Pakistan explodes into a power struggle, that struggle/conflict will be the match that lights a world war of epic proportions. A war that we are not equipped to deal with anymore. So while our entire nation is drunk on election scandal after scandal, and while our entire nation is being bled dry of finances and human treasure, no one - NO ONE - is watching this crisis as it unfolds. They are all too busy playing at politics to care and they have already long ago removed any qualified intelligence expert on Pakistan from their post. We know very well that this administration replaced qualified people with political sock-puppets who are now in positions to fuck things up even more, but certainly not to understand the brewing world crisis.

To be clear, I loathe Musharraf and want him removed from office. But right now, any change, big or small in the region is going to be a catastrophe. A change of ISI-backed Musharraf is going to be an epic catastrophe. ++


Round-up of reactions to Musharraf's resignation...
Larisa Alexandrovna, at-Largely
8/18/08
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/08/round-up-of-rea.html#more

It is great to see the public discussing the situation in Pakistan, even as the major networks are busy chasing Obama and McCain around hoping to catch one or the other - if not both - in some scandal. Here is a very quick round-up of reactions and such to Musharraf's resignation.

The always brilliant Winter Patriot has a great analysis on the Musharraf resignation. Here are some snips:

Now that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has resigned, we can expect a tidal wave of propaganda -- some of it deliberately false, some well-meaning but still false -- about how nervous we should be for our future.

After all, Pakistan has terrorists and nuclear weapons. And only Pervez Musharraf could keep them apart. Or so the story goes.

We've been hearing variations on this story for years; but it's still only a story. We get it from the right and from the left: 

Let's attack Pakistan; We were attacked on 9/11 by terrorists from Pakistan; Pakistan is going ballistic and we don't even have anyone left in our government who knows anything about Pakistan, let alone somebody in a position to do something...

Do I agree with Winter Patriot that this all hype? No. But I respect his opinion and his grasp of the facts, even if we do not agree. He goes on to make very interesting points, noting that concern about what is going on in Pakistan appears to be mostly outside of Pakistan.

In any case, as I was saying, the bulk of the panic is confined to people far away from Pakistan.

People on the ground there don't seem too concerned:

Bloomberg says Pakistani investors like the news:

Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index jumped 4.5 percent after President Pervez Musharraf resigned...

The BBC reported people dancing in the streets of Rawalpindi, and lawyers giving thanks in the streets of Islamabad. [Dawn has published ample confirmation.]

The Moderate Voice has an excellent round-up of the history of Musharraf's rule.
As Reuters reports, Musharraf's resignation appears to be a repeat of our own "national nightmare" stage-show, when Nixon resigned in exchange for a full pardon. Justice will be, it seems, absent for the crimes committed by Musharraf and his regime. The question is, however, given the amount of black-market arms deals he has helped engineer, the amount of support Al Qaeda has gotten, and the amount of power the ISI still has, if the person to replace Musharraf will be the same or worse? I don't know, that is my concern.

Steve Clemons accurately points out yet another possible reason for concern over this shake-up (although I disagree that a resignation is better than impeachment):

Pervez Musharraf's move today -- his resignation -- is the right one for Pakistan. An impeachment process, now avoided, might have further shaken up and aggravated serious, nation-splitting tensions between factions in the military, legal community, and among the competing political parties.

However, Musharraf's enemies now have a problem. They have no enemy to rally against inside the country (they seemingly don't want to rally against al Qaeda inspired and Talibanized parts of the nation).

Musharraf's rivals now need to be "for" something rather than just against him. Hopefully, the competing parties will continue to collaborate on taking on huge challenges facing the nation -- but their record is not good.

Yes, because rivals tend to collaborate when a mutual enemy is removed? My point exactly.

Thus far, the reaction is far more optomistic than my own, which is mostly nervous and concerned. I may indeed be overeacting - which is not hard given the last 8 years of crazy. I don't mind being wrong at all, in fact I hope I am entirely wrong on this. But I am concerned and I cannot dicount my fears because they may prove wrong. What happens next will give us all a better perspective. I am, however, very disappointed that the Nixon of Pakistan gets to walk away from so much crime unscathed and that the public does not get to see the laws of their land carried out against all citizens, no matter their position. It appears that Musharraf, like Nixon, and like Cheney and Bush, is above the law. ++


The fall of Bush's man in Pakistan
Despite Pervez Musharraf's despotism and double-dealing with U.S. enemies, George W. Bush, John McCain and the GOP embraced him to the bitter end. 
Juan Cole, Salon

8/19/08
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/08/19/musharraf/

It is a measure of the Bush administration's broken foreign policy that the departure of Pervez Musharraf, the corrupt, longtime military dictator of Pakistan, is provoking fears in Washington of "instability." Despite Bush's warm embrace, Musharraf gutted the rule of law in Pakistan over the previous year and a half, including sacking its Supreme Court. He attempted to do away with press freedom, failed to provide security for campaigning politicians and strove to postpone elections indefinitely.

The Bush administration has made a regular practice of undermining democracy in places where local politics don't play out to its liking, and in that, at least, Musharraf was a true partner. But stability derives not from a tyrannical brake on popular aspirations; it derives from the free play of the political process.

 

Musharraf's resignation from office, in fact, marks Pakistan's first chance for a decent political future since 1977.

Musharraf as a general had been known in the 1990s as a hawk, foolhardy in his provocation of India and deeply wedded to supporting the Taliban (and implicitly al-Qaida) in Afghanistan. Unlike some of his colleagues, there was nothing ideological about his belligerence. Brought up in part in secular Turkey as the son of a diplomat, he displayed no interest in fundamentalist Islam. His was the belligerence of opportunism and ambition.

Musharraf deposed then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October of 1999. As army chief of staff, he had earlier that year launched the disastrous Kargil War against India in the Himalayan area of Kashmir, and been forced to withdraw. The encroachment on Indian-held territory had not been cleared with the prime minister, who was all too happy to yield to American entreaties to withdraw.

 

Musharraf might well have been brought up on charges over the catastrophe, but he decided to overthrow the civilian government instead.

George W. Bush has been a staunch supporter of Musharraf. When campaigning for president in the fall of 1999, Bush praised Musharraf's coup as promising stability for Pakistan. Sen. John McCain also supported the coup, and has recently dismissed the civilian government of the 1990s as a "failed state." It is true that Sharif had begun exhibiting dictatorial tendencies before his ouster, but that is not a failed state, it is tyranny. How civilian authoritarianism could have been cured by military dictatorship remains unclear.

Pakistan was founded in 1947 by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and other leaders of the Muslim League as a refuge for the Muslims of British India. Jinnah fulminated against theocracy and fully expected Hindus and Sikhs to constitute a plurality of the new state's population. He thought of it as a state for Muslims, not as an Islamic state, and simply wanted to save South Asian Muslims from laboring under a Hindu majority in India.

But Pakistan did not become the enlightened, parliamentary democracy with guaranteed constitutional rights that its founder, a Shiite trained in British law in London, had envisaged. It constituted the most rural and least industrialized parts of British India. It never implemented proper land reform, ensuring the survival of a corrupt and imperious class of large landlords who are not exactly clamoring for their peasants to become literate and politically aware. Its social indicators, whether literacy, health or urbanization, remained disappointing. A small fundamentalist movement, the Jama'at-i Islami, came to have influence all out of proportion to its membership, despite its general inability to garner more than 3 percent of the vote in most elections.

The military was the most ambitious bureaucracy inherited from British India, and it made its first coup in 1958. After a return to civilian rule in 1971, the military under Gen. Zia ul-Haq struck again in 1977, hanging Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979. Gen. Zia was viewed by the Reagan administration as indispensable to its covert war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Zia, isolated and without popular support inside Pakistan, made an alliance with the fundamentalist Jama'at-i Islami and began the "Islamization" of Pakistani law, which had earlier been a mixture of British legal principles with precedents derived from Muslim customary practice.

Zia's Inter-Services Intelligence, the feared military intelligence branch, received some $5 billion from Reagan and a matching sum from King Fahd in Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviets, and the ISI funneled much of that money to the most hard-line fundamentalist guerrillas among the Afghans. The Reagan-backed jihad against Moscow attracted the enthusiasms of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and thousands of other Arab volunteers, leading to the creation of al-Qaida.

Zia died in a mysterious plane crash in 1988, allowing a partial return to civilian rule. Bhutto's daughter, Benazir, won the elections to become the country's first female prime minister. But the military only let her take office after she pledged to cede Afghanistan policy to them, so that entire policy sectors remained under military control.

Gen. Zia had extensively and arbitrarily amended the constitution, giving the president enormous powers, including the authority to dismiss the prime minister. His successor dismissed Bhutto in 1990, allowing her rival, Nawaz Sharif, to come to power. In 1993, she swept back to power in that year's parliamentary elections, but she was dismissed once more in 1996, again succeeded by Sharif, who was overthrown by the military in 1999. The military's continued control of much of government policy during that decade and the repeated intervention of the president or the chief of staff to overturn the results of popular elections stunted the growth of political parties and institutions such as the courts. Contrary to McCain's assertion, it was not the civilian parties that created a failed state but the generals who did it.

Musharraf ostensibly turned his back on his allies, the Taliban and their al-Qaida colleagues, after 9/11, acquiescing in Bush's demand that he join Washington in a global war on terror. Musharraf, who had long backed not only the Taliban but also jihadi groups inside Pakistan that the Pakistani military sent to hit Indian Kashmir, was the least likely poster child for counterterrorism imaginable. But Bush's propaganda machine painted him and the Pakistani military as anchors of stability -- after they had spent decades destabilizing Pakistan and Afghanistan and cynically deploying the most virulent forms of Muslim fundamentalism to fight India and Indian influence.

Musharraf was an embarrassment to the Bush administration once Bush began using a rhetoric of democratization. So Musharraf conveniently turned himself from mere military dictator into a "president" by the expediency of a referendum on April 30, 2002.

For a dictator, a referendum has the advantages that it does not require one to run against a rival candidate, and virtually any vote tally can be declared a victory. Musharraf held crooked parliamentary elections in fall 2002, interfering in the free campaigning of the left-of-center, secular-leaning Pakistan People's Party and the right-of-center, big landlord-dominated Muslim League (N), which had been led by Nawaz Sharif (hence the "N").
The party that did best was a pro-Musharraf, breakaway faction of the Muslim League, called "Q" for the "Great Leader," Qa'id-i A'zam, the honorific of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the country's founder. It was essentially what it would be like if an American general led a coup, suppressing the Democrats and Republicans, and ruling through something he called the "George Washington Party."

After Musharraf rigged the elections against the popular parties, a coalition of fundamentalist parties saw unprecedented success, getting 17 percent of seats in the federal parliament and taking over two major provinces, the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. Those provinces were preciscely where the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida who fled to Pakistan were hiding out. The Jama'at-i Islami and its partners in the Islamic Action Council (MMA) promptly denied that there was any such thing as al-Qaida. But some of the MMA leaders had trained, or even been Taliban.

So the man Bush had so eagerly enlisted for the war on terror, by his dictatorial tinkering with the electoral process, helped put pro-bin Laden Muslim fundamentalists in control of the very provinces where the fight against militancy and terrorism was most important. And in reality, Musharraf needed the jihadi militants too much for his struggle with India over Kashmir to thoroughly root them out.

Although the Pakistani security forces did capture more than 600 Arab al-Qaida fugitives in Pakistan, and did engage in sometimes hard fighting against tribal forces in the northwest allied to the Taliban or neo-Taliban groups, Washington's depiction of Musharraf as a critical ally in the war on terror was blatant propaganda. Elements of the ISI even went on cultivating and using Taliban elements based in Pakistan to assert control of southern Pakistan, a policy that had, in part, led to 9/11 in the first place. Musharraf either was unable to purge ISI of fundamentalist elements, or cynically continued to use them in his rivalry with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who deeply dislikes and distrusts the general.

Musharraf's unwillingness or inability to root out fundamentalist extremism brought him into disrepute with middle-class Pakistanis, especially educated women, who feared the Talibanization of their own society. Musharraf's economic policies helped grow a large, literate, urban middle class that grew attached to free access to independent and foreign media, and depended for business and professional purposes on a rule of law.

When Musharraf came into conflict with Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in spring of 2007, he highhandedly dismissed him. Pakistan's middle classes, attorneys and other legal professionals staged continual protests and rallies. Musharraf was forced to reinstate Chaudhry in summer of 2007. But when he attempted to become an elected president that fall without resigning first as military chief of staff, the Supreme Court was set to rule against him. He therefore sacked the whole Supreme Court and packed it with yes men who allowed him to call himself president. He also imposed strict press censorship and excluded some independent channels from broadcasting over cable in Pakistan. This series of dictatorial actions, including interfering with free access to the media, caused Musharraf's popularity to plummet.

Musharraf's grip on power had clearly become too feeble for his main external backers, the Bush administration and the Saudi royal family, to trust him to continue to ride the tiger of popular discontent. He had to resign his military commission to remain believable as a civilian president. After Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Dec. 27, 2007, while campaigning for prime minister, he was forced to hold credible parliamentary elections. The Pakistani public dealt a crushing rebuff to Musharraf last February, turning the country over to Benazir's PPP and to Sharif's Muslim League. The two major, long-standing parties made a political alliance and began planning for Musharraf's impeachment, spurred on by the lawyers and popular activists. It was over for Musharraf by last February.

Pakistan's middle classes have spoken. They want a return to civilian rule and a reestablishment of the rule of law. They are skeptical that the corrupt and imperious establishment political parties can deliver to them the better life to which they aspire for themselves and their children. Given the chance, they gave the biggest number of seats in parliament to a left of center, secular-tinged party, the PPP. The Pakistani people have given the lie to the stereotype often visited upon them, that a majority are religious fanatics and are incapable of participating in an open democracy.

The Pakistani military and its tacit alliance with militant fundamentalists has in fact caused most of the country's problems. If the U.S. and Europe are wise, they will give the elected prime minister their full support and pump in aid to help ensure that democracy in Pakistan, still an embryo, actually has a fighting chance. ++

Musharraf Exits, but Uncertainty Remains
Candace Rondeaux, Washington Post
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/18/AR2008081800418_pf.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 18 -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation Monday signaled the beginning of a new round of political uncertainty as the country's civilian government tries to reshape the legacy of nearly nine years of military rule.

Politicians began marathon meetings about possible replacements for Musharraf, with early reports suggesting a woman might be chosen. As word of the resignation spread, Musharraf's opponents celebrated with cakes in some places, gunfire in others. Financial markets rebounded.

But with the country's economy at an all-time low and a radical Islamist insurgency based in the country's tribal areas gaining in strength, the civilian coalition faces challenges that will not be easily or quickly sorted out, analysts here said.

Musharraf's exit, facilitated by an immunity agreement, appeared to augur a new rapport between the country's newly elected civilian government and the powerful military. But few people here seemed certain the nuclear-armed nation's episodic clashes between military might and secular statesmanship were at an end. And the departure of a man who closely allied himself with the United States in anti-terrorism operations opens the question of how his successor will work with Washington and confront the growing insurgency within Pakistan's borders.

Officials said it is likely that Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 military coup, will soon leave the country, possibly to live in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai. He negotiated immunity from civil and criminal prosecution for events during his rule, assurances that smoothed his resignation, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Musharraf announced his decision in a nationally televised public address 11 days after leaders of the two ruling parties said they would proceed with his impeachment. Demands for his resignation became increasingly vocal last week after Pakistan's four provincial assemblies voted overwhelmingly for his ouster.

In the hour-long address, Musharraf struck a defiant and emotional tone, saying that opponents had opted for the politics of confrontation over reconciliation. He said he would step down in the interest of maintaining stability in Pakistan.

"I am leaving with the satisfaction that whatever I could do for this country I did it with integrity," Musharraf said. "I am a human, too. I may have made mistakes, but I believe that the people will forgive me."

In Islamabad, the capital, news of Musharraf's departure was greeted with jubilation. People flocked to sweets shops in the city's popular Jinnah Supermarket to buy cakes and pastries to celebrate. Shazia Hassan, a 32-year-old homemaker, was nearly bursting with excitement as she stood in line to buy cakes for her husband and children. "It's the dawn of democracy," she declared.

Leaders of the ruling Pakistan People's Party and Pakistan Muslim League-N party hailed the resignation. "This is a victory for democratic forces," said Farzana Raja, a top member of the Pakistan People's Party. "It should have happened much earlier. The dictatorship should have been done away with some time ago."

The parties, which defeated Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q faction in national parliamentary elections in February, have pledged to elect a new president as quickly as possible. Coalition government leaders met late Monday in Islamabad to discuss the next steps and potential candidates for the post.

Leading contenders for the presidency are likely to come from the Pakistan People's Party, which won a majority of seats in Parliament in the February elections.

Party leader Asif Ali Zardari has remained noncommittal about his interest in the job. Zardari, who was named head of the party after Benazir Bhutto, his wife and the longtime party chief, was assassinated last year, has suggested that a female party member might be Pakistan's president.

The roster of female candidates in a country long dominated by political strongmen is relatively short. Many here speculate that Faryal Talpur, Zardari's sister and a member of Parliament from the southern province of Sindh -- a PPP stronghold -- could top the list. Other potential female contenders include the speaker of the National Assembly, Fehmida Mirza, a longtime associate of Bhutto's.

Parliament has 30 days to elect Musharraf's replacement. Until then, the presidency will fall to the chairman of Pakistan's Senate, Mohammedmian Soomro. A member of Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, Soomro was governor of the southern province of Sindh from 2000 to 2002 and was elected to the Senate in 2003. Soomro, a former banker, was appointed interim prime minister by Musharraf last year, days after he declared a state of emergency in the country. Soomro could not be reached for comment Monday.

The immunity deal that helped ease Musharraf out rankled some members of Pakistan's elite. Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the country's Supreme Court Bar Association, said Musharraf should face trial for treason, an offense punishable by death in Pakistan. Ahsan, who became a staunch and vocal critic of Musharraf after the president last year suspended the chief justice, said Musharraf was "running away from accountability."

"If he's man enough and as he has said he has done nothing wrong, he should stand trial," Ahsan said.

Born in New Delhi in 1943, four years before the partition of India and Pakistan, Musharraf emigrated with his family to the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in 1947. He graduated from the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy, then quickly rose through the army ranks, serving several years with the Pakistani army's elite commando unit.

Musharraf came to power by overthrowing then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Oct. 12, 1999, amid a highly public falling-out between the two men over a controversial military operation in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Musharraf promised at the time that military rule would be short-lived and would "pave the way for true democracy to flourish in Pakistan." But in ensuing years, he maintained a firm grasp on power while the country witnessed unprecedented economic growth, boosted in part by aid from the United States. Widely credited with initiating a thaw in relations with rival India and banning the practice of honor killings against women, Musharraf enjoyed strong domestic support during the early years of his rule.

He aligned the country openly with the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, though many U.S. officials came to question his commitment. As ire over the alliance grew at home and in the wider Muslim world, his grip on power began to slip. The first signs of trouble appeared last March, when he suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, considered a preemptive move to head off a court challenge to the legitimacy of his presidency.

Month by month, political turmoil escalated. Former prime minister Bhutto returned from exile, only to be assassinated in December; insurgents along the border with Afghanistan stepped up attacks.

Bhutto's death generated widespread anger at Musharraf and sympathy for her Pakistan People's Party, which won a resounding victory in the February national elections.

Last week, Zardari and Sharif, head of the other coalition party, appeared to present a united front after announcing plans to impeach the president. But many here wonder how long the honeymoon will last in what analysts are calling a marriage of convenience.

Ahmed Rashid, a regional terrorism expert and Pakistani author, said he doubts the coalition government is prepared to confront the terrorism challenge within its borders. In his view, the government is likely to remain a junior partner to the military in any future decisions about how to confront extremist fighters.

Yet it is the government, not the military, that is likely to face criticism at home and from its international allies.

"There's going to be enormous pressure on the civilian government from the American administration to get their acts together, to show that they can confront militancy in Pakistan," Rashid said. "It will be a test of the coalition, which I think will fall apart."

Coalition government leaders were expected to meet again Tuesday before making an announcement about their plans for selecting a new leader. ++

Special correspondent Shaiq Hussein in Islamabad contributed to this report.


Pakistan Looks Ahead Without Musharraf
SALMAN MASOOD, NYT
August 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/world/asia/19islamabad.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The immediate reaction in Pakistan's corridors of power and streets to the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf was one of optimism and opportunity.

"His resignation will bring stability hopefully," said Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. He noted that the stock market, which had suffered in recent sessions, had reacted positively.

Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of a lawyers' movement that has been pushing for Mr. Musharraf's ouster and the reinstatement of 57 dismissed judges, said the resignation was a cause "to rejoice."

The governing coalition that engineered the ouster of Mr. Musharraf must now face a range of potential problems, minus the main factor that unified it: opposing him.

The two leading coalition partners, Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, have had a fractious relationship. Mr. Sharif is a former prime minister who was deposed by Mr. Musharraf in 1999, while Mr. Zardari is the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister who was assassinated in December.

Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif will have to reach agreement on the choice for the next president. So far, there are few clues about the contenders.

A more immediate challenge is the judiciary, which Mr. Musharraf tried to weaken over its opposition to his rule as both Pakistan's military and civilian leader. Mr. Sharif has insisted on the reinstatement of the 57 supreme and high court judges, including the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, after their dismissal under emergency rule last November. But Mr. Zardari holds that judges appointed during the emergency should also be retained.

Beyond that, the coalition will now hold sole responsibility to cope with a deteriorating economy and the continued threat from a resurgent Taliban. Mr. Musharraf lost popular support in Pakistan over efforts to contain the Taliban that were seen as appeasement toward the United States. Now, the coalition will have to find its own solutions.

"I think the political leaders have no excuse now," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political analyst who teaches political studies at Lahore University of Management Sciences. "They have to address the immediate issues like inflation and the long-term structural problems of Pakistani polity. They can't use Musharraf as an excuse any more."

Mr. Rais said the departure of Mr. Musharraf was a "great moment and a great change."

"It is a change about the democratic spirit and transition, and the establishment of constitutionality," he said. But he stressed that it would also be a test of the political leadership. "It is now really a test of their ability and a test of their capacity to deliver," Mr. Rais said.

Since the general election in February, which brought the coalition to power, Pakistan had been in political limbo, he said, neither fully governed by the Parliament nor by the president, with the two sides in constant conflict. This led to paralysis during which little was achieved and the economy faltered, he said.

The announcement of plans to impeach Mr. Musharraf this month united a wide spectrum of Pakistani society. After his resignation on Monday, the country looked toward its future.

"Now, we can expect more normal politics," said Nasim Zehra, a political analyst based in Islamabad. "Politics are inherently competitive, but the ruling-coalition partners are likely to stay together for a while." ++


Eyeing Kashmir, India Is Wary About Resignation
Many Credit Musharraf With Improving Ties
Emily Wax, Washington Post
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/18/AR2008081802176.html

NEW DELHI, Aug 18 -- For India, Pervez Musharraf's resignation as the president of Pakistan leaves a power vacuum during an increasingly tense time between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Musharraf's legacy in India is mixed, but many Indians credit him with helping bring about relative peace in Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region claimed by both countries.

"He was India's best bet in Pakistan. We will miss Musharraf," said A.G. Noorani, a constitutional lawyer and Kashmir expert. "If he had not fired his judges and gotten bogged down in domestic dramas, I believe we would have been able to make a significant breakthrough in a peace deal in Kashmir today."

Relations between India and Pakistan improved during the last four years of Musharraf's presidency. But violence in Pakistan surged during the four months leading up to his departure. Taliban fighters appeared to gain ground in the country's restive northwest, and sporadic violence spilled over into India and neighboring Afghanistan.

Both India and Afghanistan blame Pakistan's intelligence services for a July 7 suicide bomb attack on India's embassy in Kabul that killed more than 40 people, a claim supported by evidence recently uncovered by the United States. Pakistan has denied the allegation.

There have also been several cease-fire violations in the past few months along the Line of Control, the de facto border dividing Kashmir, a region that has been claimed by both Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan since the bloody partition of the subcontinent in 1947. It is a region over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars, nearly coming to blows again in 2002.

The Indian government reacted cautiously to news that Musharraf had quit. "We have no comments to make on the resignation of President Musharraf of Pakistan," it said in a statement. "This is an internal matter of Pakistan."

Recent protests in Kashmir have triggered a war of words between Islamabad and New Delhi, a flare-up that some here say would have been quelled by now if Musharraf had been able to focus his attention on it. Instead, the tension is worsening as some Indian politicians blasted Pakistan for calling for a greater U.N. role in Kashmir.

Some Indians prefer a military leader in Pakistan, fearing that a civilian might not have enough clout with the military or the intelligence services, which many here see as the most powerful institutions in Pakistan. Many also question whether a civilian government would be able to rein in the clusters of extremist fighters that have wreaked havoc in Pakistan with roadside attacks and suicide bombings.

Many Indians blamed Musharraf for an armed attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi in 2001. The incident sparked a rapid military buildup on both sides of the border, bringing the countries to the brink of yet another war.

"Still, Musharraf was a one-man go-to guy in Pakistan. Now who do we speak to? These are very uncertain times," said Bharart Bushan, editor of the Mail Today, a popular English-language newspaper in New Delhi.

In Afghanistan, which shares a long and lawless border with Pakistan, there was relief at Musharraf's resignation. The countries' border areas are where senior al-Qaeda figures are believed to be hiding. Afghanistan has accused Pakistan's intelligence services of aiding an April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai. ++


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