The News in Pakistan

Barring some major development in the presidential race or another Brittney Spears sighting, it's likely that the big news of the day (and maybe even tomorrow) is going to be the resignation of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. This didn't exactly come out of the blue. The opposition party in the Parliment has been working to impeach him and his popularity in his country has dropped dramatically. Still, it's a pretty big deal.

I don't know much about Pakistan or what the real conditions/possibilities/opportunities there are at this point. I do know that it's a country pretty important to our interests and that it's very much in our interests to have that country as stable as possible. The last thing we need is another Muslim country in the region becoming unstable and have it turn into a breeding ground for still more terrorists.

One thing that struck me as interesting is how democratic the whole thing is taking place, especially given that Musharraf took power in a military coup. True, it was a bloodless coup (as the press keeps pointing out), but a coup is a coup. Now under pressure from the popularly elected parliment, the president is resigning in an orderly way, apparently without using the military for some sort of desperation power play. The next few days and weeks will make things more clear, but I think that's an encouraging sign.