For once, thank God, Gen Musharraf and his team have got it right on a crucial issue. After PM Jamali's declaration in the National Assembly and later over the airwaves, it is fairly certain that Pakistan will not vote for any war resolution on Iraq.

When push comes to shove Pakistan will probably abstain. Which is not as good as saying 'no' to the unholy scheme afoot to rain death and destruction on Iraq. But, in the spirit of being grateful for small mercies, infinitely better than leaping once again into America's lap and covering the national banner, tattered as it already is, with a fresh coat of infamy.

The only thing left to hope, and pray, for is that from its present pedestal of resolve neither pressure nor blandishments should make Pakistan slip. About blandishments we can be fairly sure little will come our way, our American friends considering us fair game for arm-twisting. Cameroon, Guinea and Angola - -also of the family of the so-called undecided -- may get a few carrots. But for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan only the good old stick.

The fact that we allow ourselves to be taken for granted makes it all the more likely that our American friends will be livid with us. Of all countries how dare we break lose from their ranks? Powell is working the telephones and between now and crunch time is sure to call his good friend Gen Musharraf again. Let us throw up a collective prayer that Pakistan's defenders don't crack under the strain. They have cracked so often before as to have made a bad habit of it. Let's hope it remains different this time.

Britain, America's ever-faithful poodle, has come up with a set of absurd conditions for Saddam to fulfil in order to avert war. More likely to save Tony Blair's skin. The simmering ferment in Labour ranks makes it clear that going to war without UN backing will be the end of the road for him. At the same time, he has gone so far out on a limb that not going to war now will finish what remains of his leadership. And then the knives - but let's not jump to conclusions.

Let us simply look at how his government panicked when the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested that if for some reason (a reference to Blair's domestic troubles) Britain was not on board, America would have to do the fighting alone. The thought of being left out sent shock waves through Whitehall. Britain's predicament is comic. It is behaving like a poodle and a vulture at the same time, deferential poodleism going hand in hand with a salivating desire to be in on the kill.

There's no reason for Pakistan to show all its cards prematurely. It should wait for this latest British absurdity to play itself out. No point in making stentorian declarations either which will only get the Americans to come at us like a load of bricks. Even so, between now and voting time in the Security Council, in all the mosques and imambargahs of the Republic let us remember the prayer about our military defenders not cracking under the strain.

Should we not then be grateful for even the partial democracy we have? Left to themselves, what would our defenders have done? Call professional politicians what you will but for all their faults, at times huge, they are more sensitive to public opinion than defenders on horseback.

Most of the adventurism filling the annals of our foreign policy has come from military sources. Politicians have been more cautious. They have been wrong about many things and by their behaviour have often been their own worst enemies. But wars and needless foreign entanglements they have largely avoided. In the stormy days ahead, Pakistan's defenders should be listening hard to whatever outside advice they can get.

But will the ISI ever learn? For the first time in the directorate's history it invited foreign correspondents into its lair in order to show them a video of how the alleged Al Qaeda operative, Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, was arrested. Why? I have not the foggiest. In the event, no one believed them, the video looking too obviously doctored.

If some press reports are to be believed, the ISI was also dining (sorry, no wining) Q League Senators on the eve of the Senate's maiden session during which the newly-elected Senators were to take oath and elect their chairman and deputy chairman.

Granted that the Q League's true godfathers reside in ISI headquarters. Still, there is such a thing as subtlety. The election of the chairman and deputy chairman (from the ruling party, where else) was a foregone conclusion. The ISI need not have taken the dining pains that it apparently did. The ISI has many qualities. When can it add subtlety to the list? And when can the nation expect the ISI to stop playing its political games?

Which brings me to my friend Rana Sanaullah, PML-N MPA from Faisalabad. Picked up from outside his lawyer's chamber in Faisalabad by plainclothesmen and beaten up once again. He was first roughed up in police or military custody soon after the Musharraf takeover. His sin: saying a few harsh things about the army at a meeting of PML-N MPAs at the Lahore residence of Pervez Elahi.

He didn't quite learn his lesson, for after being re-elected (we were colleagues in 1997) he said some more harsh things about the army in the Punjab assembly. Obviously, a tough nut. For his pains, he's been beaten up again and his body lacerated with small cuts to the skin. An attempt was also made to humiliate him, his hair, moustache and eyebrows having being shaved. What is to be said? This is barbarism, and crude at that, pure and simple. As a nation it doesn't show us in too flattering a light. And then we complain about our bad image.

The Legal Framework Order, which enshrines Gen Musharraf's attempt to rewrite the Constitution in his own image, is not helping our collective image either. The National Assembly is not swallowing it and unless it does so (with a two-thirds majority, no less) it will not be the kind of legal tender, or call it indemnification for unconstitutional acts, which strongmen so strongly desire in their search for security and legitimacy.

Signs are that the opposition parties, knowing they have Gen Musharraf on a hook, won't relent unless they succeed in getting the general to take off his uniform. Or at least announce a date for doing so. Musharraf is no fool, however. He knows that the day he sheds his uniform he'll be more naked than the emperor without his clothes.

Does this have the makings of a classic standoff? Much will depend on the religious parties. It's hard to be sure where they stand at all times because some of them have a history of close ties to the army and ISI. They also must protect their stakes in the Frontier and Balochistan. This is the first time Pakistan's maulvis are tasting the halwa of power. They won't give it up lightly.

The PPP reads the wind in its own fashion. After the elections it wasn't averse to a deal with the military provided the terms were right. The PML-N, forced by circumstances to be consistent, is ploughing a lonely field. But the point is that while all three entities have their differences, on the question of the LFO they stand together. Or at least are together till now. Given that consistency and steadiness of purpose are not highly-prized virtues in the shifting sands of Pakistani politics, what happens tomorrow is hard to say.

Spare a thought, however, for Musharraf's problem. He must sink or swim with the present set-up, which after all is his creation. It's a phenomenon oft-seen in Pakistan than when an artificial structure such as the one we have at present collapses for whatever reason, its inventor is hard put to survive the after-shocks.