Eighty-three percent of Pakistanis want him gone, according to a recent poll by the International Republican Institute, and the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, has shown no inclination to support his former boss. The army is unpopular for fighting what most Pakistanis view as "America's war on terror." Kayani does not want to make the situation worse by trying to keep an unpopular president in office.

The two parties in the governing coalition have finally agreed to seek Musharraf's impeachment, after prolonged haggling. Nothing gets agreed quickly between these two uneasy partners. Faced with this Musharraf may simply decide to go on the understanding that he can leave the country without facing any legal proceedings.

If he goes it will mark the end of an era that began in 1999 when he led Pakistan's army in a coup against the civilian government. However, the return of democracy offers no magic solutions to Pakistan's multitude of problems and will probably complicate some of them.

The country is facing 25 percent inflation yet the governing coalition has no economic plan, or even a permanent finance minister.

But the biggest area of concern is security. The tribal areas of north-west Pakistan have become a Taliban playground. From there they launch attacks into neighboring Afghanistan while offering a safe haven for Taliban fighters in that country when they are pressed by NATO forces. Al-Qaida is a growing presence in the region, establishing the type of training camps that existed in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001.

This is Musharraf's legacy. His disastrous truce with the militants in 2006 allowed them to regroup and gradually undermine local tribal government. Unfortunately the civilian government is in no position to do any better. The army is only nominally under civilian control.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency may only be nominally under army control. It certainly isn't under civilian control. Two weeks ago the U.S. government presented the Pakistani government evidence that members of the ISI were complicit in the Taliban bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul last month that killed 58 people. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has long accused the ISI of supporting Taliban operations in his country.

Under pressure from the United States, Pakistan's government, prior to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's July visit to Washington, announced that the ISI would henceforward report to the home ministry rather than to the army or the president. Their decision stood for less than a day.

Pakistan remains a U.S. ally but the buttons to press to get action against the Taliban threat to Afghanistan, India, and with al-Qaida's resurgence, the United States itself, do not seem to exist. Almost every day the U.S. seems to learn something new about the limits to its capacity as the world's one remaining superpower.