General confusion

Pakistan's government had vowed to start impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf. A session of the National Assembly, Pakistan's lower house of parliament, had been scheduled for today to initiate the proceedings. However, Musharraf pre-empted the move by announcing his resignation.

Since the election, which saw the return to power of two Musharraf’s foes – former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto –Musharraf’s main constituency has been in the White House. The State Department grasped a few months ago that the president’s career was unsalvageable.

Musharraf chose to jump before he was pushed. This guaranteed that he would maintain a little dignity, and avoids the threat of an army-led intervention. But rather than solving the problem Musharraf’s resignation is likely to mark the beginning of a protracted struggle for power between Zardari and Sharif.

Whilst the two politicians agreed to impeach Musharraf – something Zardari had originally resisted - their relationship is famously testy. In May, members of Sharif's party withdrew from the cabinet after the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), refused to reinstate the judges sacked by Musharraf. While some may now rejoin the cabinet, the struggle to come out on top continues. Both leaders are vying to coax members of the former president’s Pakistan Muslim League into their respective parties.

Yet neither seems to have a strategy for dealing with the country’s economic downturn, the disloyal security forces or the country’s biggest problem – the emergence of a Pakistani Taliban, which has parlayed a truce with the government into control of large parts of the country. From their safe-havens, these militants not only threaten Pakistan but undermine NATO’s Afghan mission.

The West is in an awkward position, having backed Musharraf to the hilt. But the president’s resignation is an opportunity for the West – and for Gordon Brown, whose absence from the Russo-Georgian conflict was embarrassingly obvious.

While David Miliband jets off to Tblisi, the Prime Minister should offer to help Sharif and Zardari fashion a new government strategy for dealing with the country’s problems, including the insurgency. Britain’s ties to Pakistan – and the mistrust in which ordinary Pakistanis now hold the U.S – make Britain an ideal facilitator.

As a carrot for a new deal – which should include a balanced counter-insurgency strategy, regional peace initiatives and intelligence reforms – the Prime Minister could offer to host high-profile donor’s conference, which could lay the foundation for a UN-led assistance programme to be overseen by an assistance envoy. Perhaps this could be a job for Paddy Ashdown, who was lined up for the UN job in Afghanistan until Afghan President Hamid Karzai changed his mind.

No peace in Pakistan is possible without a regional peace process and Gordon Brown should persuade George W. Bush to appoint a Presidential Envoy – a regional version of Zalmay Khalilzad’s previous Afghan role – and for the EU to do the same. These two “tandem envoys” could then begin the long trek towards regional stability, helping to prepare the ground for a new strategy from a new U.S administration.