 Fast rewind to the summer of 1999: Pakistan's economy is reeling from sanctions following the nuclear tests of the previous year; Nawaz Sharif is poised to ram the 15th amendment through after the Senate elections the following year, making Sharia the law of the land and crowning himself Amir-ul-Momineen; and Pakistan is on the brink of default.
In those days of doom and gloom, I dropped in at an old friend's house for a drink, and asked him what he made of the situation. Now Javed is a serious student of numerology, and has been consulted by many movers and shakers to predict their future. In response to my question about the days ahead for the country, he came out with a startling prediction: he saw ten good years ahead for Pakistan. When I demanded to know what he was basing his forecast on, he simply said this is what his calculations showed.
Then came Musharraf's coup, and the Sword of Damocles of the 15th amendment was lifted. Indeed, this was the only reason I supported Musharraf in those early days: I feared that the amendment would release further sectarian demons into an already polarized society, and cause our minorities and women to be even more marginalized and oppressed. And to be honest, Musharraf held out the promise of a more liberal, secular Pakistan.
However, I, like millions of other Pakistanis, would soon be disillusioned: we had underestimated his desire to hang on to power at any cost once he had tasted it. The truth is that it is against human nature to give up power voluntarily. But until Musharraf showed his naked ambition, we were taken in by his liberal pronouncements. His poor grasp of economics was an advantage because it allowed the country's financial managers to impose some discipline on an economy pushed to the brink by Nawaz Sharif's excesses and his expropriation of foreign exchange accounts. And Shaukat Aziz, despite his slippery ways and smarmy manner, was a far better finance minister than he was a prime minister. He initiated a number of macroeconomic stabilization measures that restored confidence in the economy, and brought in fresh internal and external investments.
Then came 9/11, and the rest is history. From a pariah, Musharraf morphed overnight into a international leader standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of George Bush and Tony Blair. Diplomats and generals from around the world queued up to visit Islamabad and, most importantly, they all brought pledges of millions of dollars of aid and loan write-offs. Where our foreign exchange reserves had hovered at around a billion dollars - barely enough to pay for a fortnight's worth of imports - they shot up to $15 billion. One factor, apart from international largesse, that played a part in Pakistan's economic revival was the sudden use of formal banking channels to remit funds in the wake of a Western crackdown on the informal havala or hundi system that had been earlier used by most expatriate workers.
The stock market boomed, as did the real estate market. New cars flooded the roads as banks gave loans to first time buyers on easy terms. Per capita income expanded at an unprecedented pace, rising from $450 in 1999 to $1, 250 ten years later. There are now an estimated 30 million Pakistanis who are classified as members of the middle class with an average annual income of $10,000, while another 17 million are in the upper or upper middle class bracket. At the same time, poverty levels have fallen by 10% over the last decade.
Of course Musharraf cannot be given all the credit for this solid improvement. Much of this relative prosperity can be traced to 9/11, and the billions in aid that followed. Granted, much of it went to the armed forces, but enough trickled down to the larger economy to cause a turnaround. Nevertheless, it was Musharraf's swift U-turn in the wake of 9/11 that prompted Bush to refer to the Pakistani dictator as his "tight buddy", and to instruct his administration to open the American purse-strings for Pakistan.
And even though Musharraf did not deliver on his early promises of a more tolerant Pakistan, he did live up to his rhetoric of ‘enlightened moderation' in several important ways. For instance, by increasing the number of women in the National Assembly, he paved the way for greater political participation by women. Indeed, these members are more vocal and active in the assembly than their male counterparts. Another of Musharraf's liberal reforms removed the iniquitous system of separate electorates that had effectively disenfranchised the minorities. This was yet another Zia-era measure that had been imposed to keep non-Muslims out of the mainstream, and it was appropriate for the next military dictator to do away with it.
However, other odious laws such as the Blasphemy Act and the Hudood Ordinance continue to blight lives across the country. Nor did Musharraf act to get the madressas under control, despite a solemn pledge he made to the world soon after 9/11. And by continuing to secretly support elements of the Taliban and domestic terror groups engaged in Indian Kashmir, he became increasingly viewed as an opportunist who traded on American support for his equivocal policies.
Musharraf's problem was a familiar one: every dictator craves legitimacy sooner or later to justify his extended rule. In Musharraf's case, he depended on the support of religious parties as his PML-Q did not have the numbers in the National Assembly to rule on its own. Thus, the 2005 elections were rigged to give religious parties an unprecedented number of parliamentarians, and in return, they agreed to vote for the 17th Amendment, legitimizing Musharraf, giving the dictator a virtual blank cheque. Musharraf was forced into these contortions as his famous referendum had backfired, with scarcely five percent actually voting in this farcical exercise, as against the large turnout claimed by him.
The creation of mullah-dominated provincial governments in the NWFP and Balochistan proved disastrous for the war against extremism. These clerics, fearful of being outflanked by the jihadis, prevented action to be taken against them. A series of shaky agreements that collapsed before the ink was dry enabled the extremists to take control of much of Fata. Musharraf's mishandling of the threat has resulted in the civil war Pakistan faces today. And by taking brutal military action against Baloch protestors, he triggered the insurgency we have today. Unable to see things except in black and white, and bound by his desire to hang on to power at any cost, his nine years have witnessed extremist terror expand to the present state of anarchy and violence.
As his domestic and international credibility and authority slipped due to his sacking of the Chief Justice in March 2007, he reached out in desperation to his arch-enemy, Benazir Bhutto. The Americans were particularly keen to keep their favorite general in place, but saw that without political support, he simply could not ride out the political storm that was brewing. Under pressure from the Americans, Musharraf agreed to a deal that would see BB back to contest the polls scheduled for December. Nevertheless, he remained ambivalent about sharing power with a hated and despised politician. In my book, his refusal to provide the PPP leader with the kind of security he himself enjoyed was a criminal act, especially after she narrowly survived the suicide attack that welcomed her back on 18 October.
Stepping back and examining Musharraf's stint, it is clear that he did some good, but on balance, the damage he did to the system far outweighs his contributions. 
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