In the nine years he led Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf sometimes called himself a “tightrope walker” – someone who could balance opposing forces or bridge Pakistan’s dizzying political and ideological divides.
Contradictions abounded. Mr Musharraf was the darling of the West playing foot with the Taliban; he was the whiskey-sipping liberal who made concessions to extremists; or the cocky army command trying to make peace with India.
But the tragedy for Mr Musharraf, who died in Dubai on Sunday aged 79, is that he is now mostly seen as the leader who failed to hold his footing and eventually fell off the tightrope: the last military general to stand open was in power in Pakistan.
As plans were made on Monday to fly the remains of Mr Musharraf home from exile – a journey he was unable to make in life – historians and others in Pakistan began to grapple with his conflicting legacy as a central figure in the aftermath to deal with in September. 11 world that eventually lost sight of every constituency in Pakistan.
“Today’s Pakistan is the product of Musharraf,” said Adil Najam, a professor of international affairs at Boston University. “The forces that are shaping the country today were unleashed during his tenure. But I don’t think he intended it that way.”
It has been over four decades since Pakistanis have mourned a leader who died in bed. The last two funerals were for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007; and military dictator General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who died in a mysterious plane crash in 1988 – both unforgettable emblems of the country’s dangerous politics.
Despite this, there has been little hesitation in passing judgment on Mr Musharraf in recent days. Some blame him directly for the country’s precarious state — a nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people, with ailing institutions, unruly politics, a crumbling economy and empowered religious extremism. “Many of today’s ills can be traced back to the Musharraf era,” wrote Cyril Almeida, a political commentator, on Twitter.
His legacy is deeply uncomfortable for the military he once led.
Since his ouster in 2008, the army had sought to protect Mr Musharraf from the full wrath of Pakistan’s judicial system. When angry Pakistanis hounded him in court with allegations of ill-treatment during his reign, including murder and treason, he did not spend a night in prison. This was mainly because the military has made sure that he was allowed to slip into exile on several occasions, most recently in 2016.
But the army also seemed happy that Mr Musharraf was forgotten in Dubai. Many in the country’s security sector blame him for problems that tarnished the army’s reputation and ultimately led to the military leadership radically changing the way it wields power in Pakistan.
Some point to his alliance with the United States and President George W. Bush after the 2001 al Qaeda terrorist attacks, which garnered billions of dollars in military aid but also sparked a militant insurgency in Pakistan that led to brutal fighting, suicide bombings and tens of thousands dead.
Others resented the cooperation Mr Musharraf gave Americans, allowing the CIA to set up a secret drone base for several years – only to be humiliated in 2011 when a Navy SEAL team broke into a home in Abbottabad and killed the drone Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden barely a few hundred yards from a large Pakistani military base.
Still others have condemned what they see as Musharraf’s “double game” – his intelligence agencies hunting down some militants to earn American favor and money while quietly coddling others who are meant to serve Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan or Kashmir.
Harsh public criticism of the military escalated, transforming relations with a Pakistani public previously characterized by deference – or at least silence.
“The military in Pakistan has undergone a major transformation over the past two decades,” said Mr. Najam. “It went from an institution that most people respected or were silent about to an institution that is now very openly attacked – and that shift started with Pervez Musharraf.”
This era changed the power calculus of the Pakistani military, which has ruled the country in one way or another since the country’s independence in 1947. It no longer seeks to seize power immediately after Musharraf’s tenure, but allows civilians to be elected in democratic elections to hold the crucial levers: control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons; steering the country’s policy towards Afghanistan and India; and to manage relations with America and, increasingly, with China.
It’s probably not the country Mr Musharraf hoped to forge after seizing power in a bloodless coup in 1999. He portrayed himself as a daring modernizer determined to steer Pakistan away from the dour Islamism of its former military ruler. General Zia.
He’s front-rowed fashion shows, announced that he enjoys a glass of whiskey, and has been photographed with his two Pekingese poodles, infuriating conservatives who think dogs are dirty.
During his tenure, he published memoirs comparing himself to Napoleon and boasting about his muscles and his many manslaughters. He appeared on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, where he ate Twinkies, made jokes about Mr. bin Laden, and referred to himself as a “tightrope walker.”
For a time, the West surpassed it. The United States has provided Pakistan with billions in aid. In return, Mr Musharraf handed over hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda members for detention in the Americans’ Guantánamo Bay – some of whom turned out to be innocent.
But it soon became clear that Mr Musharraf could not keep his promises and frustration began to mount. Divisions have arisen within his own military over how to counter Islamist extremism. There have been disagreements over how to fight Pakistan’s Taliban or whether militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that killed 175 people, should cut support to the army.
Massive street protests erupted against Mr Musharraf and he was forced to resign in 2008.
The effects of that era are still lingering.
The Baluchistan insurgency, sparked by Mr Musharraf, continues to rumble. Dealing with jihadist groups seems to remain ambivalent in the country’s security apparatus. The legacy of empowered Islamic extremists continues to wreak havoc on Pakistan’s streets, whether in the form of huge protests or lynch mobs killing accused blasphemers with impunity. Just last weekend, Pakistani authorities blocked Wikipedia, claiming it contained blasphemous content.
The dysfunctional relationship between civilian and military leaders has taken a new turn. Imran Khan, the cricket legend-turned-politician, came to power in 2018 with the thinly veiled backing of the military, who viewed him as a docile ally.
But after Mr Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote last year, he directed his supporters’ anger at enemies within the military whom he blamed for his ouster. Since then, he has devoted his energies to a public condemnation of high-ranking military officials that would once have been unthinkable.
“Imran Khan came to power and announced he was on the same side as the military,” said Madiha Afzal, a Pakistan researcher at the Brookings Institution. “And he ended with a stunning anti-establishment note like no Pakistani politician has done before.”
Still, she added, it would be unfair to blame Mr Musharraf for all of Pakistan’s problems, or even for the military’s continued power grab. These, she said, are rooted in pathologies dating back to the country’s 1947 split with India.
“It stems from two pillars – faith in Islam and opposition to India – which all the country’s leaders have tried to follow,” she said. “Musharraf wasn’t responsible for that – he was a product of it.”
Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
