Pitiless are the wages of jihad. True to its General Zia-bestowed motto of "Jihad in the cause of Allah", the high command of that quintessentially Islamic force, the Pakistan army, is keen, nay desperate, to ride out into the Iraqi desert to do sergeant duty under the wings of the American occupation.

We know it, our godfathers in the Pentagon know it, the skies above Islamabad are all too aware of this burning secret.

Only one thing is wanting and that's a suitable fig leaf, something with which to cover the smouldering ashes of Pakistani pride. Nothing more. All that the Pakistan army high command is asking the heavens is some excuse, no matter how inadequate or tawdry, on which to plant the banner of this new jihad.

But consider the cruelty of our circumstances or the malevolence of fate. The entire universe seems to be conspiring to deny Pakistan's far-seeing generals their panting desire, by now virtually uncontrollable, for a bit of jihad in the Iraqi desert under the auspices of the American flag.

More terrifying than the wages of jihad is a yearning thus left tantalizngly unfulfilled. Only a poet can do justice to the contours of this predicament.

To confound matters further, India, as ever treacherous, has failed to come marching to the rescue. For once in 55 years - soon to be 56 - the strategic aspirations of India and Pakistan were stretched out along the lines of the same fallacy. The proud armies of both countries eager to find service under Uncle Sam, eager to beat each other to the draw, eager to stand higher in American favour. But faced with stiff opposition at home, the Indian government failed the test of compliance and decided finally not to send troops to Iraq.

There is no piece of infamy Pakistan's military and civil mandarinate is not prepared to contemplate provided the spectre of India can be invoked to redefine or reinvent the 'national interest'. If India was marching to Iraq could Pakistan be left behind? This would have been the ultimate excuse but with this excuse no longer available, the discomfiture in General Headquarters can only be imagined.

(The national interest, by the way, is the last refuge of modern-day scoundrels. Patriotism stands superseded. The national interest does service for it now.)

General Musharraf left little doubt on the score of willingness during his leisurely trip across the United States. Even on occasions when there seemed not the remotest necessity to appear more loyal on Iraq than Bush himself, Musharraf assured his American audiences that "in principle" (another refuge of the stricken) Pakistan was willing to send troops to Iraq.

Imagine a madam who "in principle" is not averse to being propositioned and indeed is more than willing to keep her assignation. She only wants to keep up appearances so as not to scandalize her neighbours.

This readiness for gendarme or occupation service in Iraq is hard to understand. If the wages were right there would be some justification. What don't people, and even proud nations, do for the right wages?

But the Pakistan army high command has already signed up for sentry or bag duty in America's business in Afghanistan. And Pakistan is getting the wages the US has deemed sufficient for our loyalty and devotion to duty. Whatever further service the proud Pakistan army does for the Pentagon in Iraq, that's still not likely to lead to a raise in wages.

The Camp David package - three billion dollars over five years - about defines the limits of our worth. That too provided we don't slacken in our duty. Nothing more. So what's all the fuss about? Ussi tankha pay kaam karna hai, tau hum khwa makha apni duty barhanein kay chakar mein kiyoon lagey hooey hain?

What's wrong with us? Where lies the malaise?

Whichever way you look at the equation, Pakistan has about exhausted the benefits of one-man rule - that is, if there were any to begin with. Call Musharraf's accession to the top an accident or the working of fate. But after three and a half years at the helm he is beginning to provoke the kind of fatigue and ennui that Ayub Khan engendered after eleven years and Ziaul Haq after eleven and a half.

Towards the twilight of his rule there was no single blunder or crime which could be held responsible for Ayub's downfall. By end 1967, beginning 1968, the politically interested classes both in West and East Pakistan were simply tired of his rule, tired of his face, tired of all the lies associated with the so-called Decade of Development.

By 1988 the people of Pakistan were fed up with Ziaul Haq, his face, the sinister arch of his eyebrows, his lies, his hypocrisy. Kings, emperors and communist dictators are for life, not mediocre army chiefs in tinpot dictatorships. After eleven and a half years even the army, its patience not easily exhausted with its leaders, was tired of Zia.

Junejo's sacking and the dismissal of the National Assembly were just the last straws. Even had these not come, everything pointed to a dark and sordid chapter in Pakistan's history drawing to a close.

Zia's world was primitive compared to the internet-wired global village of today. Everything happens on a faster or more compressed time scale these days. Zia could afford to tax the nation's patience for an eternity. That's no longer possible today. Not because Musharraf is a lesser man than Zia but simply because the nature of Pakistan's Jurassic Park has changed. The old dinosaurs cannot return because the laws of the new ecology go against them.

There are many good things about Musharraf, some that may even find glowing mention when his estimate as a leader comes to be written. But, frankly, he has nothing more to contribute, nothing more to give. (Which is why, perhaps, he's taken to advertising his leadership skills abroad with such a vengeance.)

The nation is tired and exhausted, bored to death with the LFO, sick and weary of the president's uniform. From this weariness itself arises the question: is Pakistan a nation or a personal jagir held in perpetuity by a string of no-good rulers? Does it have any existence beyond the compass of individual ambition?

Gen Musharraf can be forgiven for thinking he's the emblem of a brave new world. That's what people in his position always like to think. In truth, however, like the two figures he so passionately excoriates, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, he too is very much a symbol of the past, the ghosts of October 12, 1999, sharing his banquet table.

When he says that come hell or high water he must stick to his uniform, the insurance policy he seeks to purchase is inspired by the battles of the past. But his past or the skeletons in his cupboard are his problem, not the nation's.

No nation likes to be stuck in a rut. The people of Pakistan too want to move on. You don't need a gallup poll to ascertain the truth of this. Given the choice, they would want to go beyond Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf.

But that's only possible if Gen Musharraf suspends belief, if only for some time, in his indispensability and allows democracy, the genuine article, to work and the new political system he has spawned to breathe. Left to its own devices even this system with all its in-built Q League sham will evolve into something better.

But that's not likely to happen. The fate of Musharraf's quasi-democracy is tied up with Musharraf's own future. If he stumbles it goes with him. That precisely is Pakistan's problem, stuck in a never-never land where time stands still and the past keeps staging a comeback.