Pervez Musharraf: The firebrand general who morphed into a non-starter neta

Impatient yet pragmatic and flexible where required, he ultimately died in exile, paying a huge price for the place he earned in history

Pervez Musharraf (79), former General and President, and a Pakistani to the core, died in exile in Dubai on Sunday. He earned himself a place in history but had to pay a price that he would later confess to friends.

Musharraf took over the reins of Pakistan via a coup in 1999, months after then Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif signed a peace accord with Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lahore.

The Kargil war had been fought and won by India and as Vajpayee visited the Minar-e-Pakistan, the site of the Lahore resolution that signalled Partition, he wrote in the visitors’ book: “A