| Anyone in Pervez Musharraf’s position would find it difficult to deny the existence of God. From the moment he boarded flight PK 805 on 11 October 1999 at Colombo airport as a dismissed Chief of Army Staff until the moment he alighted as President of Pakistan from a US helicopter at Camp David on 24 June 2003, every action that he has taken has been as if blessed by a ‘hidden hand’, some higher authority. |
| How else can one explain the miraculous recovery he has made within three years, from his public rejection on 25 March 2000 in Islamabad by the 42nd President of the United States when Bill Clinton refused to be seen in public with him, to the unprecedented welcome on the lawns of Camp David by the 43rd President of the United States where George W. Bush described him as a ‘visionary and a courageous leader’? Such a turnaround in politics is something mortals can only dream about, and only divinities have the power to grant.[EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN 11 July 2003, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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