“We’ll see if they can turn their attention to governance and get a handle on their problems,” said former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage. “They have been using the Musharraf thing as an excuse for non-governance.”

Speaking from Islamabad, Stephen Cohen, the Brookings Institution’s South Asia expert, said: “This is really the moment of truth for Pakistan. If this fails, it is unclear what will happen.” But he warned that the outside world has to be patient. “It will take the new government a full year to work things out on counterterrorism, a year to make the mistakes they have to make. It is a huge experiment.”

Musharraf, a close ally of the Bush administration, resigned today under pressure from the two main parties in Pakistan’s ruling coalition, which have been threatening to impeach the former army chief of staff on charges of subverting the constitution and other offenses.

His departure leaves a power vacuum in a country beset by spiraling food and energy prices and violence from Islamic radicals. The instability promises to be a major challenge for the next U.S. president, and both candidates weighed in with statements praising today’s developments.

“The resignation of President Pervez Musharraf is a step toward moving Pakistan onto a more stable political footing,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “Pakistan is a critical theater in countering the threat of al-Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism, and I look forward to the government increasing its future cooperation.”

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said, “A year ago, I advocated that the U.S. move from a ‘Musharraf policy’ to a ‘Pakistan policy.’ I hope all of Pakistan’s friends will now seize the opportunity created by Musharraf’s exit to focus on the urgent issues of today: confronting the threat of extremist violence, dealing with food and energy shortages, and helping the Pakistani people build a stable, secure, democratic future. ”

Armitage and other U.S. experts said Musharraf’s departure has been inevitable for some time, especially since elections earlier this year in Pakistan that were widely seen as a repudiation of his rule.

While President Bush has been personally supportive of Musharraf — to a fault, in the view of many experts on Pakistan — his administration has been gradually preparing for this moment. Bush has met twice with the newly elected prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and today White House aides sought to suggest the two countries will continue to cooperate in the battle against extremists and other common concerns.

“We’re confident that we will maintain a good relationship with the government of Pakistan,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters in Crawford, where the president is spending the week at his ranch.

Johndroe said Bush “had a good meeting with the prime minister a couple of weeks ago in Washington. The Pakistanis realize that the threat of terrorism, the threat of extremism, is a threat to them, as well as the rest of the world.”

Xenia Dormandy, a Harvard researcher and former Bush adviser on Pakistan, said she saw little immediate practical change from the departure of Musharraf, especially in the counterterrorism area.

“He hasn’t effectively been leading Pakistan for the last six months,” Dormandy said in an interview. She said the fight against extremists in the tribal regions along the border with Pakistan has been handled on the operational level by the army chief of staff, with policy alternating between military operations and trying to strike political deals with tribal leaders.

“You’re truly not going to see any great changes in Pakistan with Musharraf’s resignation, with the exception you will start to see greater [political] infighting among the coalition partners,” Dormandy added.

Michael J. Green, former top Asia official at the White House who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, predicted that the United States will miss Musharraf.

“You could count on him to make tough decisions, even though you could never count on him to completely follow through,” Green said. “It will probably be much harder to get decisive action as we did with Musharraf. The good news is that the democracy process is moving forward, and it may be possible to create a more durable political framework.”

source: Washington Post