MORE than anything else Pakistan's problem is the paper tigers that infest its towns and cities - distinguished people who have made a cult out of speaking vociferously and out of season.

Of these paper tigers none are more deadly than professors of the cloth - reverend divines whose concept of 'jihad' is incomplete without a mike, powerful loudspeakers and an attendant press corps dutifully inscribing their bizarre utterances.

Consider the evidence. There are some organizations engaged in real combat in Kashmir. Like the Hezbollahs of Lebanon they are genuine people. One may disagree with their aims but no armchair rhetorician can scorn their sacrifices. It is their readiness to die for what they believe in which entitles them to public acclaim and attention.

But there are others, constituting the clear majority, who are champions of verbal jihad. Still others are engaged in a holy war against their compatriots - sunnis against shias, shias against sunnis. At their hands Mao's dictum stands inverted: power flowing not from the barrel of the gun but from concentrated hate and mindless bigotry. Sectarian gunfire is aimed at the capturing of no strategic heights. It is an end in itself.

Many societies are home to dangerous fringe activities. If the chest-puffing of our paper tigers was a fringe activity, it could easily be ignored. But through a process of absurdity gathering pace with the years - and dating from the times of that commander of the faithful, General Ziaul Haq - Pakistan's name has come to be associated with the export of fundamentalism. The truth is different but what chance does truth have against the collective roar of a thousand paper tigers? If RAW had hatched a conspiracy to give Pakistan a bad name it could not have succeeded half as well as Pakistan itself, a passion for self-inflicted injuries remaining the defining characteristic of many of our national moods.

Two caveats, however, are in order. Firstly, even if Pakistan wanted to, it cannot overnight cut its links with the Taliban. That would create more problems than it would solve. Geography, not ideological affinity, dictates the necessity of our close links with Afghanistan. True, there is a lot of ideological muddle about Afghanistan in Pakistan's decision-making circles. But the generals of the Pakistan army are no acolytes of Mulla Umar. (One Holiness, Rafiq Tarar, is enough for Pakistan.)

Secondly, even if Pakistan wanted to, it cannot overnight disengage itself from Kashmir. Nor would there be tangible profit in such a course. What would we get from India in return? Perhaps a quote or two from Ghalib. Perhaps even a verse from Mr Vajpayee, who is an occasional poet. But nothing even remotely approaching fairness on Kashmir. India is keenly interested in a solution of the Kashmir dispute but strictly on its own terms.

Pakistan's necessity is altogether different. It is not to buckle under western pressure and cut all links with the Taliban. Nor to carry out a precipitate retreat from Kashmir which would sow the seeds of internal resentment. It is to muzzle the paper tigers who are giving it a bad name. In this case, the medium is indeed the message and in our hands the medium has turned into a dangerous instrument.

Give any name you like to what is happening in occupied Kashmir: uprising, insurgency, militancy. Any help from our side, by the very nature of such things, has to be covert so that we can plausibly deny involvement whenever the need arises. Try telling this to the apostles of national security who have looked on with benign indifference as one religious group after another has blown Pakistan's cover in Kashmir.

Time was when every last speaker or column writer in Pakistan was a nuclear hawk: singing the strategic praises of the bomb and urging Pakistan to come out of the nuclear closet. Now that Pakistan has done precisely this and is having to live with the consequences, that frenzy has somewhat abated. Nuclear hawks do not strut about with quite the same panache as before, reality having dampened some of their enthusiasm.

The frenzy once reserved for nuclear capability has now transferred itself to Kashmir. Every divine in Pakistan has become a 'jihadi'. No religious leader worth his salt will make a public appearance without kalashnikov-wielding bodyguards at hand. Is self-publicity the goal or is there a reason for such fearsome security? Lashkar-i-Taiba and the Hizbul Mujahideen (to name only two of the genuine outfits) might have reasons to fear Indian sabotage. But what quarrel has RAW or the Indian army to pick with Maulana Samiul Haq or that latest entrant to the list of pseudo-warriors, Akram Awan of Munara?

Yet the collective outbursts of all these reverend fathers gives every foreigner the impression that the length and breadth of Pakistan is alive with religious seminaries imparting military training and the ideology of 'jihad' to thousands of adherents. Since one telling photograph is worth a million words, each time a Samiul Haq or some other warrior of his ilk makes a public appearance attended with an army of bodyguards, Pakistan's image receives another bashing.

Pakistan has enough real problems on its plate without having to worry about the antics of specialists in verbal 'jihad': gladiators whose weapon of choice is the press conference. RAW needs to set aside no funds for disinformation. We are doing its job for it.

What are ISI and Military Intelligence doing? They have perfected the art of political control (or interference). What has happened to their once-great skill in remote-controlling the armies of fundamentalism? Cannot they assess the dangers of a 'jihad' gone rampant, a 'jihad' whose symbols are now perhaps more evident in Pakistan than in Kashmir? Or is it that old habits die hard, that the intelligence establishment is still stuck in the grooves of the past?

Read the occasional piece by Lt Gen Hamid Gul and Lt-Gen Javed Nasir to get a taste of the theology which still rules large parts of the national security complex. Whoever first coined the slogan that a friendly Afghanistan gives Pakistan strategic depth deserves a prize for philosophy. With an unquantified mass of Afghan refugees spread all over Pakistan, it is hard to say who has acquired strategic depth - Pakistan or Afghanistan?

In any case, it is hard to figure out why men in uniform are so mesmerized by the notion of strategic depth? Do they expect a Hitlerite invasion of Pakistan? When politicians play games it is easy to deride them. When soldiers play games it is no laughing matter, the consequences being more deadly. Maintain friendly ties with Afghanistan but leave the Afghans to their own devices. This is the lesson of history, a lesson Pakistan's Clausewitzs have been ignoring for the last 20 years.

Around Kashmir too myths abound. Nothing that Pakistan can do will force India to the negotiating table. The sooner we rid ourselves of this delusion the better. If the Kashmiri people choose to fight against Indian occupation Pakistan has a duty to support them - but surreptitiously and without turning the politics of 'jihad' into an international tamasha. If the Kashmiris score successes in this fight the triumph should be theirs. If they weary of it we should be able to live with that too. Proactive adventurism is what we must eschew, the days of this having passed, the costs of this now outweighing any likely benefits.

A word in the end about Lt-Gen Haider, the interior minister. He has his heart in the right place but he is given to making too many tall pronouncements against 'jihad' and religious extremism without being able to make any of them stick. He should speak softly and carry a big stick. But a fat chance of this happening. When the leading knights of this military government cannot get the measure of someone like the Bishop of Munara they are unlikely to make much of an impression on the other paper tigers infesting the squares and marketplaces of Pakistan.