The gnawing reality of his recent European “talkathon”, where General (retired) Pervez Musharraf was also involved in an embarrassing fracas with a fellow Pakistani journalist over the escape of a high-profile terrorist from the custody of his regime, offered a direct contrast to the tour de force he had envisioned on its eve with a highly publicized mission of “correcting Pakistan’s image.”
For a man, who had successfully replaced former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as the darling of the West with his stellar role in the war on terror, the aura of indispensability has come spectacularly crashing down in the last year or so.
As well as losing Washington’s steadfast support — the tirade pertaining to his now questionable role in the terror war continues beyond editorials and column inches — Musharraf has had to face a barrage of exhausting discontent with his rule in the streets of Pakistan.
Coupled with this huge trust deficit is the mounting public pressure at home from both civilian and now military strata, even if it is mostly confined to retired former generals, for him to step down.
In a telling indictment, an opinion poll conducted in Pakistan last December by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonprofit group based in Washington, showed the majority of Pakistanis (67%) wanted Musharraf to quit immediately with 70% saying his government did not deserve re-election.
But Musharraf’s spin doctors were scathing in response and trashed the findings.
Recently, the regime asked the two Americans responsible for the survey to leave the country within three weeks because their visas will not be renewed. The government had earlier tried in January to show them the door but relented under diplomatic pressure.
The IRI has also been banned from giving exit polls on the premise that “there is no mention of it in the constitution”.
The institute has reversed a decision to send election observers for the February 18 vote because of fears the volatile situation would prevent them from accurately gauging the elections. It was the only American group planning to send observers.
The ban on IRI follows the forced ouster of American journalist Nicholas Schmidle, who along with his wife, moved to Pakistan on a research and writing fellowship in 2006 but was asked to leave before the two-year course ended.
His departure will particularly rankle ordinary Pakistanis since he had written eloquently about the largely “misunderstood” country and “the most hospitable people in the world”. His crime appears to be an indicting account of (the rise of) a new generation of Taliban on Pakistani borderland that was published in the New York Times Magazine two days before his send-off. 
Refusal to accept a bad story is but one chink in Musharraf’s image machine.
The trouble, as most pundits are pointing out, is that the recently retired chief of the world’s sixth largest army readily anoints the good of the state with his own sustenance in power.
As one senior US congressional official, who visited Pakistan recently, but did not want to be named, observed: “He’s locked in his own bubble that l’etat, c’est moi — the state is me. He’s not thinking clearly anymore.”
The growing frustration with his rule may be evident to all but Musharraf is wont to strike down any criticism as dissent unworthy of his attention.
A recent gathering storm among an Ex-Servicemen Society that comprises retired top generals, including army, air force and naval chiefs as well as Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chiefs, serves as a pertinent example.
In an unprecedented move, they wrote a letter last month, publicly calling for Musharraf to step down. But when a Financial Times reporter asked Musharraf about the lowdown on the European tour, he bristled: “They are insignificant personalities… most of them are ones who served under me and I kicked them out. They are insignificant. I am not even bothered by them.”
In a Shakespearean manifestation of the unkindest cut of all, these ex-servicemen, enraged at Musharraf’s contempt for them, have announced plans to join the lawyer community, whose leaders and about five dozen independent judges of the superior courts are currently under detention for their opposition to the beleaguered leader.
So what is making Musharraf insecure and inducing an image breakdown?
Politically, Musharraf is at a crossroads. His popularity has plummeted to such an extent that if theoretically, his supporters in the Pakistan Muslim League, the last ruling party, win, he will be accused of rigging.
In the event of a fair and transparent poll, pundits are betting the mainstream opposition made up of Pakistan People’s Party of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto and Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N, will cobble a two-third majority to probably, impeach him.
The uneasiness about his future was evident in an acknowledgement Musharraf made grudgingly, last month to German magazine Der Spiegel, when pushed on the possibility of quitting.
 “Believe me, on the day when I arrive at the conviction that the majority of the people don’t want me any more, when I believe I can no longer make a contribution to my country, I will not hesitate a second. I will go.”
However, he remains non-committal on how that could be determined. When questioned on the European sojourn, he was evasive at first, then flustered, before concluding that he would “just know”.
Musharraf rose on the back of an image cultivated with some craft and ingenuity by Mushahid Hussain, whose famous past political artwork includes a spruced up image of former prime minister and a Musharraf nemesis: Nawaz Sharif.
 “Enlightened Moderation” (primed at extremists in the Muslim world) — the fantasy that endeared Musharraf to the West for years — is actually the brainchild of Hussain. But even he fell out with Musharraf over the latter’s ambitious streak.
Recalling the general’s decision to slap Emergency last November against his pleading, Hussain quickly distanced himself before adding somewhat piquantly: “By this action, the chief of army staff will end up presiding over the liquidation of his own legacy.”
He is not the only one who keeps a neat distance from Musharraf’s controversial legacy. The aftermath of February 18 polls will decide if it is all a handshaking distance from receding into oblivion.