Musharraf resigns:

What now for Pakistan?

The world's media focus on Washington's 'propping-up' of Musharraf and wonder what will happen now to US-Pakistan relations.

Pervez Musharraf's resignation as president of Pakistan provokes much discussion in today's papers about the volatile country's future in today's newspapers.

The authoritarian leader - who after 9/11 was seen by the west as a key ally in the so-called war on terror - had become a busted flush even to his keenest international supporters as he lost legitimacy at home.
"The US was like a partner that has been cheated on for years and refuses to see the reality," Frederic Grare, a Pakistan specialist at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, tells the Financial Times.

In its editorial, the New York Times says Washington must provide "more effective and realistic support for Pakistan's fragile democracy" with substantial increases in economic assistance and tighter monitoring of military aid.

For seven years, the Bush administration enabled Mr Musharraf - believing that he was the best ally for the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He never delivered on that promise. And Pakistan's people deeply resent Washington for propping-up the dictator in Pakistan, the English-speaking newspaper Dawn urges the four-party coalition to address the "most pressing problems" facing the nation.
Determining what the priorities ought to be is not difficult: militancy, the economy and relations with India and Afghanistan need to be addressed urgently. Solutions, however, may prove more elusive. Indeed, the very nature of the problems is such that they may get worse before they get better The Guardian says the coalition that unseated Musharraf with the plan to impeach him is unlikely to last long, but "if the Pakistan People's party and Nawaz Sharif [the main players in the coalition] cannot be meaningful allies, at least they can learn to be responsible adversaries."

*This is an extract from the Wrap, guardian.co.uk's daily digest of the best of the papers and online media