End of a Beginning

As a Pakistani, pleased though I am by Pervez Musharraf's resignation as President, I cannot but fear that this week's celebrations could prove to be short-lived. Yes, his departure will make Pakistan more democratic and was long overdue. But it will not in itself cure the myriad ills facing the country.

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The Rise and Fall of Pervez Musharraf

Musharraf's legacy is a mixed one. Like many Pakistanis, I was appalled when he seized control of Pakistan in 1999. Pakistan had stagnated in the 1990s under the bickering and incompetent elected governments of Benazir Bhutto and her rival Nawaz Sharif. But I recalled the damage done by the oppressive dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s and had no desire to see Pakistan revert to military rule.

I began to revise my opinion of Musharraf after 9/11. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in response to terrorism, and the terrorist attack on its parliament later that year led India to threaten to do the same to Pakistan. Musharraf seemed to offer firm leadership in this time of crisis, managing to reverse Pakistan's policy of support to the Taliban and embarking on a normalization process with India.

By the midpoint of Musharraf's nine-year rule, a combination of sound economic policies and foreign aid had resulted in rapid growth for Pakistan. Optimism was in the air, and Pakistani friends of mine who had lived abroad for years — artists, bankers, architects, professors — were flocking back home.

Musharraf spoke in favor of tolerance, women's rights and moderate interpretations of Islam. He liberalized the media, allowing dozens of private television channels to operate and freely criticize the government. And at first he seemed prepared to allow the judiciary to challenge the government. Unfortunately, Musharraf seemed unable to accept the logical conclusion of the project he had begun: his own departure. He spent the second half of his rule battling the very democratic forces that he had helped unleash.

As he became more isolated and focused on self-preservation, his government took its eye off the economic management of the country. Poor policies eventually resulted in crippling electricity blackouts, dangerous food shortages and rampant inflation. His autocratic leadership style and refusal to share power with the country's two biggest democratic parties also meant that the fight against religious militants in Pakistan came to be seen as Musharraf's (and America's) war, utterly lacking in popular support. Large swathes of territory were overrun by Pakistani Taliban, army morale crumbled and the once unheard-of tactic of suicide bombing became commonplace in Pakistan.

Now that Musharraf has gone, the country needs to come together. Too much time has been spent blaming Musharraf rather than finding solutions to Pakistan's pressing problems. Pakistan must look to the future and break decisively from its past. For Sharif and Bhutto's widower Asif Zardari, leaders of the two mainstream parties, this means avoiding a return to the vindictiveness and squabbling that characterized relations between their parties in the 1990s and undermined Pakistan's previous experiment with democracy. Their first test will be the selection of a new President, where it is essential that a nonpartisan, mutually acceptable candidate be chosen. Both sides must recognize that building a stable democratic system will better serve their interests in the long run than engaging in a zero-sum conflict that sets the stage for another coup.

Beyond that, they will need to work together to develop a plan for reviving the moribund economy and have a public debate on the unpopular war on terror. Pakistanis should not blindly follow America's lead, but they must recognize the self-delusional nature of claims that the struggle against militancy is not their fight. Last year alone more Pakistanis were killed in terrorist attacks than the number of Americans who died in 9/11.

As for the army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, he has done an admirable job of pulling the army out of politics. But the instinct will remain to focus on India as the main threat to Pakistan and to treat religious militants as "assets" for projecting Pakistani power. His challenge will be to recognize that the army helped create the terrorists who are now the country's biggest security risk, and to reverse the ambiguity that has characterized the military's commitment to confronting this menace.

Democracy brings responsibility. With Musharraf gone, Pakistan's leaders would do well to remember that the public now has only them to blame.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of the novels Moth Smoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist