Musharraf steps down as army chief

Under mounting pressure from political opponents, a tearful President Pervez Musharraf stepped down this week as head of Pakistan’s army, a conciliatory move he hopes will keep him in power. An emotional Musharraf formally passed control of the military to his handpicked successor, pro-Western Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, at a ceremony in which he sniffled and called assembled troops “the saviors of Pakistan.” Afterward, the embattled leader’s aides told reporters that he would lift the state of emergency he declared three weeks ago “in the next few days.”

But Musharraf’s concessions won’t head off strong challenges to his leadership from former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in a 1999 military coup, defiantly returned from exile this week and said he would drive his rival from office. “I am looking to rid my country from the menace of dictatorship,” Sharif told cheering supporters. He and Bhutto declared themselves candidates in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January.

Sorry, but it’s too late for Musharraf, said The New York Times in an editorial. With his “erratic and authoritarian whims,” he’s made himself the enemy of democracy, and the Bush administration should stop acting as if he’s vital to U.S. interests. He’s not. Rather than shoring up Musharraf, President Bush should openly support Bhutto and Sharif as they work to “build a broad civilian democratic front.”

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I have some bad news, said Stanley Kurtz in National Review Online. “Pakistan is not a democracy” and never has been. In all of Pakistan’s history, “there has never been a peaceful transfer of power between two elected governments,” and the nation has yet to have a leader any less corrupt or authoritarian than Gen. Musharraf. That includes Sharif, a hard-line Islamist who is only now presenting himself as “the fulfillment of the West’s democratic dreams” so that we’ll dump Musharraf and help him seize power. “Shame on us” if we fall for it.

Let’s not overestimate our influence here, said Dan Simpson in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Having had a ringside seat to our recent adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, it’s doubtful that Pakistanis are waiting for America to step in and decide what kind of government they should have. All we can do is tell them we’d prefer the January elections “to be as free and fair as possible” and then let them sort it all out. Ultimately, it’s the Pakistanis who “must fix Pakistan.”