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Pakistan's Musharraf Resigns

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By JANE PERLEZ

The New York Times

Published: August 19, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Facing imminent impeachment charges, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation on Monday, after months of belated recognition by U.S. officials that he had become a waning asset in the campaign against terrorism.

The decision removes from Pakistan's political stage the leader who for nearly nine years served as one of the United States' most important, and ultimately unreliable, allies.

And it leaves U.S. officials to deal with a new, elected coalition that has proven to be unwilling or incapable of confronting an expanding Taliban insurgency determined to topple the government.

"Whether I win or lose the impeachment, the nation will lose," Musharraf said, explaining his decision in an emotional televised speech lasting more than an hour. He will stay in Pakistan and will not be put on trial, government officials said.

The question of who will succeed Musharraf is certain to unleash intense wrangling between the two rival political parties who form the governing coalition. It also will add a new layer of turbulence to an already unstable nuclear-armed nation of 165 million people.

"We've said for years that Musharraf is our best bet, and my fear is that we are about to discover how true that was," one senior administration official said, acknowledging that the United States had stuck with Musharraf for too long and developed few other relationships in Pakistan to fall back on.
Bush administration officials will have to find allies within the fractious civilian government, which has shown scant interest in taking on militants from the Taliban and al-Qaida who have roosted in Pakistan's badlands along the border with Afghanistan.

At the same time, suspicions between the United States and Pakistani intelligence agencies and their militaries are deepening, and relations between the two countries are at their lowest ebb since Musharraf pledged to ally Pakistan with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Nuclear Control Concerns

Among the greatest concerns, senior U.S. officials said, is the durability of new controls over Pakistan's nuclear program.

Although Pakistan has been through even more abrupt political transitions than the current one - through assassinations, a mysterious plane crash and coups - this is the first since it amassed a large nuclear arsenal.

Another central concern is the war in Afghanistan, which has been fueled by Taliban and al-Qaida militants who have used Pakistan as a rear base to launch increasingly lethal and sophisticated attacks across the border.

After years in which Musharraf proved unable or unwilling to rein in militants in Pakistan, U.S. officials say they are more skeptical than ever that they can count on cooperation from Pakistan's military leaders, including Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, a former head of Pakistan's spy agency who replaced Musharraf as military chief in November.

Kayani has stressed to the Americans his army is demoralized and weary. He has declined to undertake the kind of counterinsurgency training for his soldiers that Washington thinks is necessary.

The coalition government had "no comprehension" of the insurgency, said former Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, whose parliamentary constituency adjoins the tribal areas. "They have one policy for domestic consumption: 'Have peace, don't use the army,'" he said. "Then for the foreigners they say: 'We will fight.'"

In a harsh assessment of the Pakistani military, a U.S. officer who dealt with the army here for several years said in an interview in July that it was a "worthless institution" with "a few" outstanding individuals.

The increasing U.S. mistrust of the Pakistani military, which has depended heavily on U.S. financial support, has been heightened by Kayani's reluctance to move more of the army's focus from the border with India to the tribal areas, the official said.

"To this day, the military does not see the Taliban as an existential threat to Pakistan," the officer said. The Pakistani army has clung to the sovereignty of Pakistan, he said, as a way of keeping U.S. forces out of Pakistan because the presence of the U.S. army "would destroy the image of the Pakistani military."

Taliban Insurgency

A main challenge for Washington now will be to fix the attention of the two leaders of the coalition parties, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, on the raging Taliban insurgency that not only threatens U.S. and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan but also to destabilize Pakistan itself.

The campaign against the militants is unpopular here because it is seen as an American conflict foisted on the country. Washington would like the new government to explain that the effort to quell the Taliban is in Pakistan's interests as well.

President Bush, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, made no statement about Musharraf's resignation. White House spokesman Gordon D. Johnson said, "President Bush appreciates President Musharraf's efforts in the democratic transition of Pakistan as well as his commitment to fighting al-Qaida and extremist groups."

The muted reaction from U.S. officials was partly a result of the Bush administration having come to terms months ago with the expectation that they would have to pursue their strategy in Pakistan without Musharraf.

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