When words run out it is time for resignation - for being reconciled to the inevitable - or for worse. With Iraq it's the worst now happening - a tyrant at home being assailed by tyranny from abroad.

Only this time there is nothing the Tyrant of Baghdad could have done to avert war. The inspections were a sham, or at least a sham from America's point of view. Hans Blix's team could have discovered an El Dorado of forbidden weaponry and America would still have gone to war.

The US, or rather the war caucus now at the steering wheel of US policy, has its own agenda, something that goes beyond Iraq and predates September 11. The war caucus wanted a war in the Middle East for a host of reasons all inter-connected. Oil, Israel, the entrenchment of US power (as if any more entrenchment were needed) and Christian evangelism have all been at work in priming the US for this war.

Islamic fundamentalism is not the problem here. A form of Christian fundamentalism is. If he lived and ruled in our part of the world Bush's view of religion would brand him a bigot. An ayatollah in the White House - supported by a corps of ayatollahs around him. If Shias take offence at this metaphor, then a mullah in the White House.

Reading about the war caucus and their inter-connecting threads - the ones that bind Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rove, Abrams, and their fellow-cohorts - will give anyone the creeps. And to imagine that they have a sophisticated country, the most powerful on earth to boot, in their grip.

Bush rules the US. These people, Bush's minders, their moment having come, rule Bush.

In a fundamental respect this is worse than Hitler. No one pushed Hitler into any war. He was war's leading advocate and indeed in 'Mein Kampf' sketched a grand theoretical basis for conflict, Germany's need for living space, a good 15 years before the Second World War.

Bush was an isolationist before September 11. Many in the war caucus had laid out their blueprints for redrawing the Mideast map and ensuring Israel's unchallenged dominance much before. Not Bush. He was not even interested in foreign policy. Now he is war leader, the triumph of the war caucus complete.

Nothing could have deflected Hitler from going to war. No appeasement, no Munich. He wanted war at any cost. Nothing could have prevented the onslaught on Iraq. The Bushites (another name for the war caucus) wanted war at any cost.Saddam just happened to be the perfect excuse, with just the right credentials as a domestic tyrant to invoke justifying clauses about morality and human rights. If Saddam hadn't been around, he would have had to be invented. The Bushites wanted war and they've got it.

From their point of view the perfect war. A weak country, or at least a country no match for the US. An Iraqi army in no position to put up a fight. Between Kuwait where the US armoured columns were massed and Baghdad, the ultimate prize, the only serious obstacle is the vast desert.

China, even though without air power, taught the US a lesson in Korea. But that was on a different scale, the Chinese analogy not fitting Iraq. Vietnam taught the US a lesson. Even tiny Cuba, dauntless Cuba, taught the US a lesson during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Alas, Iraq is neither the one, nor the other. Nor is its foolish leader a patch on Ho Chi Minh or Castro. Iraq thus is the perfect victim and Saddam with his megalomania, for which his people have paid such a heavy price, the perfect excuse.

Will the annihilation of Iraq satisfy the war caucus? Or will its appetite be whetted for more? What are the limits of American arrogance? Or, in other words, after Iraq, who? No one can say for sure. But Pakistan has to be wary.

What was the mantra behind this war? Weapons of mass destruction. Does a nuclear bomb qualify for this label? If it does, we better watch out for our so-called 'strategic assets'.

Back in the old days our worst nightmare used to be an Indian-Afghan nutcracker. That's why our military wizards went overboard when Afghanistan, far from serving Indian interests, came into our orbit. They thought Pakistan had acquired 'strategic depth', not the least of the quaint notions haunting our military wizards.

The old equation no longer holds. If there is a nightmare now weighing upon the Pakistani mind it is of an Indo-American squeeze, India and the US working in tandem to put Pakistan in its place.

These may be exaggerated fears. But they are not altogether groundless. We saw this squeeze working when twice last year General Musharraf had to assure the world community that Pakistan was backing away from militancy in Kashmir.

There's little wisdom in reacting to events all the time. Better sometimes to forestall evil and for this purpose fashion a pre-emptive doctrine of our own.

In the new post-Iraq climate no one, least of all the US, is going to have much patience with any form of militancy in Kashmir. We must start doing our sums now before we are caught on the hop again.

What Gen Musharraf takes pride in the most - his obduracy towards India - has been his biggest failure. Despite the scarecrow of Kargil he carried round his neck, he had a chance at Agra to mend relations with India, to secure them on a fresh basis. But he and his negotiating team blew it, not for want of goodwill but for a failure of vision. They saw the trees and were passionate about them. They just couldn't see the forest.

The Indians blew the chance likewise. After all we are from the same region, sharing the same history and culture. Lack of vision is not a Pakistani monopoly. The only thing is, more was at stake for us. Both sides quarrelled over a form of words at Agra not realizing that more was at stake than the right phraseology.

The failure at Agra paved the way for Pakistan's being beaten with the stick of "cross-border terrorism".

Mere words have taken us nowhere. We have the words of the UN resolutions on Kashmir in our possession, locked away in our safest closets. What good have they done us? How closer have they brought the liberation of Kashmir? Mere words have been of no solace to Iraq either. If words and moral indignation could save, Iraq would not have been attacked.

Our problem is not the US or our unholy dependence on it. Our biggest weakness as a nation lies in everything being made hostage to Kashmir and our India policy. Defence spending and foreign policy, both derive sustenance from the way we look at India.

Shouldn't we be growing up and casting aside this phobia? No one is saying we abandon Kashmir. Why should we? Self-respecting nations do not sacrifice positions of principle lightly. But at the same time, unless they be allied to folly, they don't pursue them in a manner putting everything else at risk.

Pakistan's Kashmir wars haven't liberated Kashmir but they have placed a heavy burden on the nation. The source of our readiness to embrace military rule lies not in civilian failure but in our India policy. Our defence spending may not have bought military prowess but it has led to the military becoming the leading national institution. Is it any wonder then if we can't get the military off our backs?

A strange amnesia afflicts the Pakistani mind. The Kashmir problem existed before the 1965 war but it did not prevent the two countries from enjoying a good working relationship in many spheres. Goods were exchanged and travel was easy. The '65 war ruined everything. Without abandoning anything, why can't we return to those sensible days?

Pakistan's security lies not in basking in American favour but in putting its house in order and seeking peace and friendship in the region, with Iran, India and the new Afghanistan.

Whatever else Iraq may bring in its wake, whatever turmoil it generates, Pakistan should be looking ahead to the time when militarism gives way to democracy - the genuine article and not the bogus variety we have at present - and foreign policy adventurism to a polite discourse with its neighbours.