He was not the best but he was better than many we have seen. Zia Ul Haq was no saint just as most leaders we have got but he handled the Afghan Invasion very intelligently and I believe the mess we got would not have happened if he lived on after the withdrawal. Yes, he made several wrong choices but so did the other leaders before and after him. As much as Z A Bhutto is praised for his intelligence and work, I believe that Zaa Ul Haq had better performance than him.
P.S: We should rather move forward and make course corrections by learning from past mistakes rather then discussing the same topic again and again. It does not help anyone if we keep blaming our fairly past leaders for all the current problems. They are all gone.