TWICE with huge majorities have the people of Iran elected Muhammad Khatami as their president in the hope that he would roll back the influence of the Iranian clergy and usher in an era of reform and liberalization.

To his supporters his first stint in office was a disappointment because he lacked the power to implement his policies or put flesh on his good intentions. It is still too early to say how his second term as president shapes up. But the signs are not auspicious, for he remains a hobbled president, his popularity not underpinned with real power. The army and the judiciary continue to be in the grip of the conservative elements who look to Iran's spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, for guidance.

How different the situation in Pakistan. The glory and reality of power unite in General Musharraf's person. Notwithstanding his insatiable appetite for official briefings, he is his own spiritual guide and philosopher and his own implementer of policy. The only college of cardinals he has occasionally to defer to is the corps commanders conference but with the hierarchical principle embedded firmly in the Pakistan army's psyche, this deferment is often more nominal than real. What the Chief, in closet confabulation with his closest colleagues, proposes is what becomes official doctrine and policy.

With major-generals, brigadiers and colonels virtually swarming out of the woodwork and spreading over different layers of the administration, the bureaucracy is cowed down and demoralized. What remains of its spirit is gradually ebbing away at the prospect of the administrative changes likely to be wrought in the name of devolution. Every military dictatorship in Pakistan hitherto was a partnership between the army and the bureaucracy. By putting army officers everywhere and pushing the bureaucracy into a subordinate position General Musharraf's dispensation is breaking new ground in this regard.

The political parties are lost, the Sharifs in darkest limbo, Ms Bhutto in desperate straits, the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy more a collection of comic characters than a coalition to be taken seriously. The plight of the politicians is not the stuff of legend or resistance but a study in despair. All previous military dictators had to contend with vibrant opposition parties. Musharraf was handed their irrelevance on a platter. Nor did he have to do anything to earn this advantage. When he arrived on the scene such was the performance of the political parties during the previous ten years that they had already played themselves out of the reckoning.

Judge of the military government's strength by some other yardsticks. No political government could have put Dr A. Q. Khan, Pakistan's self-promoting Oppenheimer, out to pasture. No political leader could have bearded the maulanas in their den the way General Musharraf did on the occasion of the Prophet's birthday when he asked the assembled doctors of the faith to heed the lessons of realism. No political government could have so faithfully followed the IMF's prescriptions of economic belt-tightening as the Musharraf government has done.

In contrast to Khatami's powerlessness, so much power then at Musharraf's disposal. But to what uses has this power been put? Mao extolled the virtues of a clean sheet of paper because on it the most exquisite drawings could be sketched. On the relatively clean slate Musharraf got what has he been able to draw?

Certainly, the army faces handicaps, not least in the shape of the economic crisis the country faces. With Pakistan crushed under debt, there is no money to go around, no money to spend on welfare projects. But this precisely is the test of leadership: to make the best of scarce resources. Other countries have faced severer hardships than anything experienced by Pakistan. But they have met them with fortitude: made hard choices, cut down on flab and concentrated on essentials.

The effects of the US trade embargo are visible in Cuba. What would be shiny elsewhere in Cuba gives a rundown appearance. But revolutionary Cuba made its choices long ago. While no one there starves, the standard of living for ordinary Cubans is not high. There is certainly little of the tacky consumerism that passes for prosperity in most other countries. But then Cuba's health and education sectors are amongst the best in the world.

Of our economic circumstances we keep on whining but what painful waste-cutting surgery have we undertaken to meet this challenge? As the burden on the poor and the not-so-rich steadily increases, there is no let-up in the extravagance which is the hallmark of Pakistani governance. Indeed, from the way things are run in Islamabad, and from the fleets of cars whizzing the good and great (including the military brass) from place to place, no outsider would guess Pakistan was in deep financial trouble.

In any event, the effectiveness of government is not solely to be judged on the basis of money. Even if there is no money to spread around, what about the quality of administration or the delivery of services? Every authoritarian government claims that it has made the trains run on time. What metaphorical trains run on time in General Musharraf's dispensation? Law and order: not even the most sanguine of observers would say it has improved in the last year and a half. The same holds true for the quality of justice, the attitude of the police, the education available in state schools, the health care on offer in state hospitals. The same corruption, extortion and delays everywhere. Far from improving, the normal operations of government, already down and out, have been battered further. The government's whiz-kids say they are stabilizing the economy. The World Bank and the IMF certainly seem impressed by their efforts which is why aid money has started flowing in Pakistan's direction again. But a thought might have been spared for stabilizing the administration too. Instead of which a Great Leap Forward is being contemplated in the name of devolution. Even if there are good things in the devolution plan, the question to ask is whether even a brilliant theory is worth anything in the hands of bumbling experts.

Or take a look at Karachi. One of the undeniable achievements of Benazir Bhutto's second administration was to break the back of the MQM's near-insurgency in the summer of 1995. The army (let us not forget) had earlier failed to bring peace to Karachi. With the help of the police and the Intelligence Bureau, Maj-Gen Naseerullah Babar broke the back of the MQM's armed resistance and put its cadres to flight. Smarting from that experience the MQM lay low for a long time. Now, as its strike calls attest, it is rearing its head once more. With sectarian killings and a resurgent MQM, the situation in Karachi today, when a military government is in power, is more uncertain than at any time during the last five years.

Every now and then Lt-Gen Moinuddin Haider, the interior minister, blows hot and cold over sectarianism. But what exactly has he or his government done to stamp out this menace? Shahbaz Sharif took a tougher line against sectarianism than any general. Musharraf has only called Qazi Hussain Ahmed an "unbalanced" character. Shahbaz Sharif actually took on the Jamaat-i-Islami and as a response to the violent scenes the Jamaat created on the occasion of Mr Vajpayee's bus trip to Lahore gave its activists a lesson they are not likely to forget in a hurry.

That the Musharraf government is in power and there is no one to challenge its authority is an undisputed fact. That there are good aspects to this government - tolerance of dissenting views, General Musharraf's relaxed and easy personality - is also not in dispute. But that stability at the top is accompanied by sloppy and ineffective administration below is equally true.

Sure, in the little over a year and a half that it has been in power, the Musharraf government has improved its standing in the eyes of the world. But it has not improved its standing with the Pakistani people whose stoical attitude mirrors these words of Odysseus: "Be patient now, my soul; thou hast endured still worse than this."