A political leader even the famed and anti-American Mullah politicians would have fared much worse than them both , that is for sure . The difference between both though is that unlike Musharraf , Zia still had a choice of " limited engagement " or " leaving the Afghans alone " and not participating in the war for American interests at all , because lets be honest even if we had not interfered back then , would Afghanistan have suddenly found stability and gone into the Soviet/Communist control ? No , the guerrilla warfare would have raged on and they still would have been fighting with the Communists , the same bloodbath , warlords , religious fanatics , drug wars and insane madness that goes on the other side of Khyber Pass today would have been present , even without us poking our nose in and trying to act as the guardians of Ummah . We ruined our country , for God's sake , because of that . That he chose the wrong one was his blunder , Musharraf on the other hand didn't enjoy this luxury and had to settle for the " lesser of two evils " . I mean , after all the Commander of the Faithful wasn't threatened to have this country bombed back to stone ages , right ? Remember the current War on Terror doesn't start from the attack on twin towers , it has it roots deep in the " Afghan Jihad "