IF YOU watched Pakistanis celebrate General Pervez Musharraf’s departure you’d think he was Public Enemy No. 1 in their eyes.
By some accounts, Pakistanis exchanged more than 100 million congratulatory text messages on their cell-phones after hearing his departing address. My drinking friends in Islamabad tell me their bootlegger ran out of supplies because demand for the amber spirit ran so high on Monday night. Such was the level of his unpopularity.
In so many ways, Mr Musharraf perhaps deserves the opprobrium being heaped on him. After starting out as something of a messiah, come to save the nation from the clutches of the corrupt politicians, he set about restoring the economy to health.
He made a dramatic about-turn, overnight - from the Taleban’s protector and benefactor to its nemesis. He freed up the media. And he tried to build peace with India.
But three years ago, two-thirds into his long nine years as Pakistan’s ruler, things began to slip.
He swore he would step down as army chief, then failed to keep the promise. He made big talk of a three-stage transition to democracy, but seemed strangely reluctant to let the late Ms Benazir Bhutto back into Pakistan, much less his nemesis, Mr Nawaz Sharif - the former Pakistani Prime Minister, whom he overthrew in a 1999 coup. And he backed his determination with silken threats, such as making it clear to Ms Bhutto that her life would be in his hands should she return to Pakistan.
By last year it was clear the slide was irreversible.
First, came the firing of the chief justice. Then, troops killed dozens of innocent girls in Islamabad as they moved in to liberate a mosque and a nearby madrasah from the clutches of Muslim militants. Then he went for a brief spell of emergency rule. When Ms Bhutto returned to her native Karachi, a suicide bomber nearly managed to nail her. Her party blamed Mr Musharraf for failing to provide her with adequate security. Short weeks later, another suicide bomber struck. This time, he succeeded in eliminating her.
In presiding over all this, Mr Musharraf may have been led by a soldier’s innate disdain for the politician and an inner voice that told him he was the only true patriot. All the rest, including the judges who stood in his way, began to be seen as malefic forces out to undo his good work by using the cloak of the constitution and the law.
A quick read of his autobiography, released in 2006, confirms the picture of a swashbuckling soldier consumed by his ‘death and glory’ self-image. The book is called ‘In the Line of Fire’, a line borrowed from the title of a Clint Eastwood movie about a Secret Service officer detailed to protect the US President.
Mr Musharraf freely admits that he escaped disciplinary action in the army only because of his extreme valour.
In 1971, after East Pakistan was split away as Bangladesh and his army surrendered to India, he breaks down and weeps. His bullet proof car is bombed into the air, but he escapes assassination, not just once, but twice within a fortnight. And through all his troubles, including with the jihadis baying for his blood, he finds time to golf and to appear at cricket matches.
In short, he remains as cool as Eastwood playing the .44 Magnum-loving cop in the 1971 film that thrust him to stardom: Dirty Harry.
But, with his security diminished, Musharraf’s life is clearly more in danger than ever before. He has made it clear that he doesn’t see exile as a possibility. He is simply too much of a soldier to give up the fight and you can bet your last Pakistani rupee that in the months to come, he will be more voluble on his nation’s affairs than Malaysia’s Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been after his retirement.
So, how will history judge him?
My hunch is that in a few months’ time, Pakistanis will be less harsh in their assessment of the man. By then, politicians in the country would have had another good run. There is little likelihood that they will have the mettle to effectively tackle all the ills plaguing that beautiful land.
Besides, both the Bhutto and Sharif families don’t carry the cleanest of reputations. Mr Musharraf may have been foolish, but few will say he was personally corrupt.
Let’s wait and see.