In a move thats uncharacteristically Pakistan, President Parvez Musharraf resigned as head of state, bowing to massive domestic and international public pressure against him. While the move probably marks Pakistan’s first chance for a stable political future since 1977, it is also a measure of the Bush administration’s broken foreign policy.

“If I was doing this just for myself, I might have chosen a different course but I put Pakistan first, as always,” said the president, during an hour long impassioned defense of his record on live television. Wearing a western suit and tie but speaking in the national language, Urdu, Musharraf, according to the Guardian, kept the news of his resignation until the final moment, ending his almost nine years in power with “God bless Pakistan”. His own fate now however lies in exile or a criminal trial.

On Musharraf’s political deals Boston.com reported – Musharraf took office in a military coup in 1999, then made a risky strategic decision after the September 11 attacks to join the United States in its war against the Taliban. Musharraf’s alliance with the Bush administration was unpopular with the Pakistan “street,” but resulted in billions in aid.

He presented himself as a reformer, allowing a relatively robust free press, moving to amend the Islamic family laws on rape and adultery, enlarging the academic curriculum at religious madrassas, and even appearing on the “The Daily Show” in 2006 to promote his memoir. He worked to defuse tensions with neighboring India. He often said that the only remnant of his military coup was his uniform – and he shed that in November last year as he took his third, and last, controversial term as president.

But the seeds of Musharraf’s political end had been sown in March 2007, when he violated a basic tenet of democracy by removing the chief justice of the Pakistan supreme court. And over what burning constitutional issue? Whether Musharraf was technically eligible to run for another term. Fearing the ruling would go the wrong way, Musharraf gutted the courts, declared a state of emergency, cracked down on press freedoms and demonstrations, and only stoked the political opposition, enabling the return of his rival, Benazir Bhutto.

When Bhutto was assassinated in December, suspicion landed not just on religious extremists but on Musharraf’s government. Now it is Bhutto’s party, run by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, in coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in the 1999 coup, that has effected his removal. This is democracy, Pakistan-style.

It is good that power has changed hands in Pakistan without violence or another coup. Still, US policy makers can’t be naive about the two party bosses who have unseated him. Narcotics and corruption pervade the land. Islamic militants are gaining strength in territories bordering Afghanistan. Pakistan is too dangerous to be allowed to fail.