Musharraf’s account portrays him as one man sitting atop a time bomb, the only person preventing the disaster that (according to him) is Pakistan. He decided to forge an alliance with the US in the aftermath of 9/11 even though several generals within the army opposed him. He discovered that the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Dr. A.Q. Khan, was illicitly selling nuclear weapons technology to third countries. He is giving Pakistan democracy. He is empowering women. He has laid the foundations of a system for Pakistan.

According to In the Line of Fire, Pakistan without Musharraf is a rudderless ship, a state without any functioning institutions. Even the myth of the Pakistan army’s functionality as an institution is shattered. Musharraf saw his personal record after becoming army chief and noticed how it was full of red ink, based on negative and critical reports but these reports from his days as a lieutenant did not prevent him from rising to the rank of a general.

General Musharraf makes no distinction between himself and Pakistan or see himself as someone above the rest of Pakistan. During his rebuttal to Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the UN General Assembly, Musharraf spoke of how “I have done all I can” to stop Taliban attacks across Pakistan’s border into Afghanistan. Even the Queen of England speaks of herself as “We” because of the harsh egocentricity of the first person singular.

Some of my American friends have pointed out that the omissions in Musharraf’s book are more intriguing than what is included. There is a lot about Kargil, but not a word about the India-Pakistan peace process that preceded and that was undermined by the Kargil misadventure.

... contd.