I still have an old copy of the Illustrated Weekly of Pakistan (bound with so many others) carrying a remarkable series of photographs. On the first page Iqbal with the caption underneath saying: the thinker. On the next page Jinnah with the caption, the founder. On the third page Ayub Khan, resplendent in field marshal's uniform, a field marshal's baton in his hand, and carrying the description: the saviour of Pakistan.

The 'thinker' and the 'founder' remain the same, although what we may have done with the thought of the one and the handiwork of the other is a different story. The problem arises with the third leg of the tripod. So many have been our saviours that every few years we have had to change the billboards and paint a fresh portrait in martial colours in place of the old.

After Ayub, Pakistan's next saviour was Yahya. What may have been said before, bears repeating. The people of Bangladesh should honour Yahya as their national hero. But for him they might not have achieved independence so soon. Or with such confounding ease. It was not the skill or bravery of Indian arms which triumphed in 1971. It was the skill of our army high command which made the Indian triumph possible.

A mere seven years later another saviour, a general's baton in his hand, a pope's ceremonial robes on his shoulders, came marching in. General Zia saved Pakistan for eleven and a half years and we are still living with the consequences.

It might have been supposed that after all these trysts with destiny, Pakistan had had enough of saving. But it is being saved again, this time by another figure resplendent in uniform, General Pervez Musharraf, one who, moreover, claims divine sanction and the support of the 'silent majority', the phantom body on whose shoulders every saviour has raised his head above the castle walls.

After two and a half years in the saddle have Gen Musharraf's saviour instincts deadened? They are sharper than ever. Grimly truthful, he says he is going nowhere because the country needs him, his 'reforms' (whatever these might be) needing protection and because the Lord of All Things has elevated him to his present position. His spirit of self-sacrifice also shines through. If he has a role to play, he says, he will play it (Tokyo being the most recent stage where these famous lines have been uttered). Which means he will not shirk the duty of staying on at the helm. If everyone's sense of duty was as strong we would be a different people.

Consider the plight of the Pakistani nation. It has applauded dictators, but only after their seizures of power. Before the event, it has never clamoured to be saved, only asked to be left alone. Indeed, at the hands of its saviours it has even stopped dreaming whether of green pastures or sunny uplands where rivers of plenty flow. But its saviours have been relentless. At the slightest provocation they have assumed the burden of saving and in the process, much to their own mystification, have landed the nation in one disaster after another.

How often can one recount the achievements of the military mode of thinking? The futile wars Pakistan has been dragged into, the unnecessary adventures that have sown confusion in their wake? Yet the business of saving continues, no one willing to learn anything. No wonder, Pakistan represents nothing so much as a laboratory where the same experiments are repeated endlessly. This is a scientific nightmare for there is no surer way to make anyone go mad.

The fig-leafs of course change. If under Zia we were raising the banner of Islam in Afghanistan, under Musharraf we are entering an era of modernism. In both cases, under the shifting labels, the substance remains the same: dancing to foreign tunes, to the cracking of foreign whips the Pakistani lion jumping from stool to stool.

In all of Pakistan's saviour periods one thing has remained constant, the strengthening of the American connection. Pakistanis of all stripes take readily to foreign tutelage. But for some strange reason, impressive men resplendent in uniform do so more readily than others. Is it something to do with our climate? Or with our history which has resounded to the hoof beats of one conquering army after another? A strange phenomenon indeed which turns the military from fixed granite at home to melting wax abroad.

And what about Pakistan's democrats, the leading pillars of its political class? In a series of articles Mr Irshad Ahmed Haqqani has been shedding light on their dismal antics over the years. When Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dismissed Khawaja Nazimuddin as prime minister in 1953 (something in law that he had no power to do) three of his ministers including Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar were dismissed with him. But the remaining six, including Chaudry Muhammad Ali, found no burden on their consciences in serving under the new prime minister, Muhammad Ali Bogra, specifically imported for the purpose from Washington where he was serving as ambassador.

Five months later - that is, in September 1953 - Ghulam Muhammad went a step further and dismissed the Constituent Assembly. But Bogra found no problem in continuing to remain prime minister. When the Sindh High Court held the dismissal of the Constituent Assembly to be illegal, the Federal Court with the brilliant Justice Munir at its head overturned that judgment and upheld the decision of the Governor General.

As Mr Haqqani amply illustrates, in the dark annals of Pakistani history no section of the governing class can claim honour for itself. Judges, mandarins, politicos and men in uniform have drunk from the same turbid waters. No one is in a position to cast stones at anyone else.

We are still at the same games. Another set of generals are saving the country. The judiciary has once again been helpful. The political cadres, as anxious as ever to get a share of power, are again proving willing accessories to the military's political plans.

The Sarkari League led by Mian Azhar and Ch Shujaat is all aflame with the desire to serve Gen Musharraf in whatever capacity he chooses to employ it. The PPP, its leader desperate to come in from the cold, would settle for any compromise if only the military would accept its repeated offers of cooperation. Meanwhile, the country is experiencing a glut of hopeful prime ministers, every charlatan in sight thinking himself to be the most qualified for the job.

What job and to what purpose? Caesar's anointing is not in question. Gen Musharraf has already made himself plain on this score. How will the anointing take place, by referendum or recourse to the future cardboard assembly? This is the only point which remains to be settled. The prime minister's job will be to carry Caesar's cloak and walk in his shadow.

Those who think that any prime minister, no matter how malleable at first, will rise to become another Junejo are in all probability mistaken. This government is unlikely to repeat the mistake made by Zia in 1985. Through constitutional fiat, an indulgence granted to Gen Musharraf by the Supreme Court, the prime minister will be a toothless figure, a dental job on him being performed well in advance. If we lack an eye for the larger picture, no such handicap afflicts us when it comes to smaller things. At these we are quite clever.

Hands and feet bound, body strapped to the operating table, what can the nation do? Never strong at the best of times, the power of resistance has been drained from its body completely. Meekly, therefore, it is preparing to submit itself to the new experiment for which the instruments are already being prepared.

Not that any calamity is likely to ensue. Let us not forsake measured words. Having suffered other things, Pakistan can well endure an extended Musharraf presidency. The only problem is with its aftermath. Once this presidency loses steam, as in the nature of things it must, and once the shadows close in on it, as on all mortal things conceived in expediency they must, the country will once again find itself at the beginning, clearing away the rubble of another experiment fallen to the ground.

This has been our history, this the promise of the political schemes currently being hatched. The question is, how many false starts can any nation endure?