Times Online : Battle-hardened soldier walks a diplomatic tightrope

Battle-hardened soldier walks a diplomatic tightrope

By Bronwen Maddox | September 25, 2006

WHY would a president, still in office, under siege on every side, publish his autobiography? Surely that is a task better left to retirement, particularly if that might be thrust on him more abruptly than he would like. In Pervez Musharraf’s case the answer is clear.

He wants to rebut his critics: those in Pakistan who accuse him of being too close to the US, and those in the West who think he has been too close to the militants. Some leaders would do that on the hustings, before an election. But that is an option Musharraf has rejected since he took power in a military coup seven years ago.

This book is his justification for retaining the presidency while being head of the army — and for continuing to do that beyond next year, when the Constitution appears to oblige him to step down. It is a likeable and personal account, woven with details that now sit oddly in the life of the leader of a large Muslim country. He went to Catholic and other Christian schools, because they were among the best, and had a dog called Whisky. As a young man he was something of a hothead. He was forever challenging authority, and crashed through exams because of an early romantic passion.

This is not a modest text, it has to be said. Never was there a better soldier or a more natural leader, he suggests, although he does offer endearing details about courting his wife in unfashionable clothes. There is a great deal of apparent score-settling, including waspish gibes at an army wife who anticipated a promotion for her husband that never came. There are also brisk justifications of his most controversial actions: leading the Pakistani forces’ dash into India at Kargil in May 1999, when he was Army Chief of Staff; and the October 1999 coup itself, when he deposed the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His account of circling in an aircraft with only minutes of fuel left, while Sharif refused him permission to land, is told with such outrage that it almost disguises the constitutional outrage of the coup.

Many revelations seem reckless, although in the editing, which has continued up to the last minute, a spirit of selfpreservation seems to have revived. Some ill-judged remarks about the credibility of Mukhtaran Mai, an 18-year-old who was raped on the orders of a village council, have disappeared from the final text.

Most attention will go on his support for the US after 9/11, particularly his claim that Richard Armitage, then deputy to Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, threatened to bomb Pakistan if it didn’t come on side. That revelation has not appeased his critics; last week, some politicians and former generals reacted contemptuously, maintaining that he is Bush’s lackey. These rows overshadow Musharraf’s best claim to having helped Pakistan to reform, which lies in the economy and local government.

Musharraf now seems vulnerable because he has tried to court allies who loathe each other. In the Line of Fire aims to justify that balancing act — but may provoke more fire from many sides.