WAS it just jet lag? Or could it have been simply tiredness after a long and gruelling schedule? Over-confidence, perhaps? Or the misplaced expectation that the US press would extend the same warm, friendly and unrestrained goodwill to him that President Bush and his administration had been showing?

Whatever may have been the reason, the effect of President General Pervez Musharraf’s response during his interview to The Washington Post could not have been more damaging to his image as an enlightened, moderate, modern-minded Muslim leader. It is an image carefully crafted by him and his spin-doctors; it is the uniformed mannequin President Bush and his team wish to project of the man they have adopted as their man in South Asia.

This abrasive encounter must have given President Musharraf painful lessons in how not to handle the media in America. The first is that the American press forgets nothing, and it forgives no one.

It never forgave the black leader Jesse Jackson for his off-the-cuff reference to the Jewish-dominated city of New York as ‘Hymie-town’, thereby forfeiting what little chance he had of being the first credible candidate from his race for the US presidency.

It never forgot the one-finger obscenity held up by Nelson Rockefeller, then a heartbeat away from the presidency as vice-president to Gerald Ford, and whose successor he could have become.

It took on President Nixon over Watergate and caused him to be extracted, like some rotten tooth, from the Oval Office. In fact, it is the very same paper — The Washington Post — that proved to be Nixon’s nemesis and is now Musharraf’s nightmare.

One cannot blame President Musharraf for wanting to speak his mind even if he had had to borrow someone else’s thoughts. He tried to blunt his initial response to the prickly question by attributing it to hearsay, and when he found himself hoisted on another person’s poniard, he attempted to extricate himself with a forceful denial, which The Washington Post then refuted by putting a transcript of his interview on its website for the world to listen to.

Surely he must have anticipated that, out of all the US papers of such standing, The Washington Post which has Nixon’s mouth mounted as a trophy would certainly have taped his interview. Lesser dailies even in countries like Pakistan take such primitive precautions. Had President Musharraf on his staff a man like Ron Zeigler (Nixon’s press secretary), he could have left it to him to explain the indefensible. Confronted with endless and repetitive questions about the Watergate affair and trapped into providing contradictory clarifications, Zeigler made the now famous assertion: “This statement is an operative statement. The others are inoperative.” (Ziaul Haq had his own solution. CMLA stood as much for Chief Martial Law Administrator as ‘Cancel My Last Announcement’.)

There must be moments now that President Musharraf wishes he had ignored the question put to him by the Post, and if he could not, he could have followed the advice of a well-weathered US politician who cautioned that a reply should be given only if it ‘improves on silence.’

The second lesson Musharraf has had to learn the hard way is that the press remembers you not for what you did, but what you said. And the teacher in this case was the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof whose piece was published on September 20 which described him as ‘nuts’ and what not.

Our ambassador to the United States, General Jehangir Karamat, descended into the ring and struck a blow in defence of the president, calling Kristof’s piece “a vitriolic and personal attack.” He suggested that he should focus instead on Musharraf’s achievements. Although hard-hitting and timely, it is unlikely to send Kristof reeling back into his corner.

President Musharraf today, like President Yahya Khan in his own time, enjoys the unprecedented support of the US presidency. Notwithstanding that, Bush’s White House will not act — not more than Nixon’s could for Yahya — as a referee between the American press and its target. It can offer a good reception; it cannot protect its guest from a bad or hostile press. Every US administration knows better than outsiders do (and often to its cost) that it does not control the press. It knows all too well that the press in fact controls public opinion, which is why it makes such a formidable adversary.

In a way it is sad that Musharraf’s interview with the Post should have appeared like some unexpected pimple on an otherwise unblemished official visit. In his capacity as the president of Pakistan he was received by the president of the United States, and in his capacity as his country’s Chief of Army Staff he was feted at Centcom headquarters at Tampa (Florida) by US General Abizaid. He was received throughout with all the head-swivelling adulation the US reserves for its reading allies.

While in the US, Musharraf said the right things his hosts wished to hear. He met the right people and shook the hands of those his hosts would have wanted him to. He relieved shadows of Agra by having a lengthy tete-a-tete with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that lasted four and a half hours, albeit without any conclusive results. One can imagine the chagrin of the press corps of reporters who had waited impatiently in the New York hotel until midnight before being told that there was nothing to report.

And now, President Musharraf has come home laden with foreign goodies and ideas, returning to a home beset by domestic problems. The political scene is as ragged as when he left it. The law and order situation is getting worse. Rape appears more often in the news than reform. The rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming a statistic. The haves have it in plenty, and the have-nots learn to exist somehow. Indian films are forbidden but food imported from India is not. Some say that we have bartered away our sovereignty to the US. Kristof of the NYT suggests that we enter into another barter — a Free Trade Agreement for Osama bin Laden.

One has to ask oneself: Can a nation that denies itself democracy demand self-determination for the Palestinians? Can a nation that cannot stand up to a superpower stand up for the Kashmiris? Can a nation that does not conduct a discourse within its own body politic expect to have its voice heeded abroad?

‘Foreign policy depends ultimately on internal conditions and developments’, a politician once advised his countrymen. “Internal unity and progress for us therefore become essential if India is to play an effective part in world affairs.” Pandit Nehru might have been offering advice to us here in the 21st century Pakistan.