"Among mortals second thoughts are always best." - Euripides

We've configured the whole thing wrong. As a nation living on the dole we should be looking to our next meal, or the next bonanza, and not confusing our already addled minds with such notions as honour and self-respect. When did chronic indebtedness go hand-in-hand with honour?

General Musharraf rightly sided with the Americans post-September 11 and those criticizing him on this count are wrong. He only wasn't right about the price of cooperation. As so often in the past, Pakistan sold itself cheaply, the common failing of tinpot authoritarianism. When a Third World autocrat slips, his nation is left without a safety net.

The question therefore is not whether we should send troops to Iraq. On this score all doubts should now cease. Consistent with our history, culture and national temperament the only sensible thing is to bow to American wishes and signal our readiness to send soldiers to Iraq. Only question is about the price.

We should hold out for better terms, indeed audacious ones, and be true not to the courage of our convictions (happily, there being none) but the courage of our instincts.

Looking our American friends firmly in the eye we should tell them that, for once, we won't be taken for granted. Egypt got loans worth seven billion dollars written off during the 1991 Gulf war. If Turkey had allowed American troops access during the war on Iraq, it was promised something like $20 billion. These should be our streetwalking benchmarks.

Our minimum demands: all American loans written off at once, without Congressional approval, and a one-time grant, say, of $15 billion. Plus, market access for our textile exports. Plus, a squadron of jets better than F-16s to be paid for over the long-term. Plus, an airborne warning system (AWACs) to counter the Phalcon radar system India is getting from Israel.

We'll have to change Shaukat Aziz as finance minister if we want to get anywhere close to these terms. He's been a key member of the team settling for insulting wages post-September 11. If he represents Pakistan in future negotiations, goodbye to a fair deal, let alone audacity.

Defence Secretary Lt Gen Hamid Nawaz should also be kept away, preferably by a barge pole. The Americans will say what a tough man he is and he will again say, as he did recently, that the US had enhanced Pakistan's security and but for US help India would have made an example of Pakistan. With its other problems the Islamic Republic must also put up with such Napoleons.

Another precaution: no member of the Pakistan negotiating team should have son or daughter studying in the US. Otherwise, you can bet safely on it, Pakistan will risk being shortchanged from the start.

In return, no half-measures, the last refuge of all cowards. Why just 10,000 soldiers, why not 20,000? Indeed, why not 30,000? Three crack Pakistani divisions helping police the occupation of Iraq. After the US, Pakistan the main force in Iraq. If we are to be mercenaries, and all our past tells us we should, we should be bold about it.

So let's end all this nonsense of seeking a fig leaf from the UN or the Islamic Conference. The leading symbol of global impotence is the Islamic Conference. As for the UN, all it can do is to make the rape of Iraq legitimate. It can't undo the rape. If we are going to do the US a favour, and if we expect to be adequately rewarded, it is to US coffers we should be looking, not the UN's debating procedures.

Take a leaf from Turkey's book of realpolitik. A proud nation, fearsomely proud, at last coming round to the necessity of helping the American occupation because the Turkish economy, several times more indebted than ours, cannot afford the wages of independence.

As the excellent Eric Margolis puts it in a recent column, "Just weeks after Washington announced $8.5 billion in desperately-needed new loans to Ankara, Turkey agreed to send troops to Iraq. Erdogan and his AKP had stood up to Washington, at least long enough to save national honour. Now it was time to take American loans to stave off bankruptcy."

So time for us to stop pussyfooting. We should say yes (although I suspect we've already said that) and get down to some hard bargaining. If the US is not willing to play ball, if it again wants to deal with Pakistan on the cheap, that's another story. Then in all good faith, and without spoiling our relationship, we can tell our American friends to go look for some other streetwalker.

What is Gen Musharraf afraid of? Iraq's governing council? Since when did a bunch of puppets become an arbiter of good taste and morality?

Muslim and Arab countries? None, barring Syria, dared lift a finger in defence of Iraq. None is in a position to tell us what to do.

As for Dr Mahathir Muhammad, let us beware of his siren calls. He can afford to preach defiance and tell the Islamic world to stand up for its rights because Malaysia under his stewardship is now an economic powerhouse in South-East Asia. Not being in the same league, we can't afford the same luxury. Indeed, it might be a good idea to censor Dr Mahathir's speeches as reported in the Pakistani media.

The windbags of the Muttahida Majlis-I-Amal? The military government, in some ways godfather to these firebrands, has probably a fair idea of where they stand. As during the American bombing of Afghanistan, they can be expected to thunder a bit and burn a few tyres. They have too much at stake in the present dispensation - government in the Frontier, half a government in Balochistan - to risk any serious confrontation.

Imran Khan is threatening public protest. Well, leading about 20 to 50 slogan-chanting youngsters down Islamabad's famed Constitution Avenue - the enduring commemoration of a Constitution more dead than alive - is serious business, especially for a district administration unable to handle the simplest of demonstrations. (Consider the utter chaos it was thrown into by the relatively small mob which came out after the funeral of the slain sectarian leader, Maulana Azam Tariq). But there's time enough to deal with this incipient threat.

Benazir Bhutto will go along with anything that makes the Americans happy. In her geography collection all the maps point the same way: the road to Islamabad lies through Washington. GHQ's real ally in the send-troops-to-Iraq policy is Benazir. A pity Musharraf seems not to realize this. Or realizing it is afraid to let the camel into his tent.

The PML-N may thunder a bit but consider the attitude of its leadership. Have the Sharifs in exile said anything on this issue? Hard to recollect anything. Their attitude will be governed by that of the Saudi royal family. If the Saudis say yes (even if behind doors), the Sharifs will be damned if they say no.

So what are Musharraf and GHQ afraid of? All their instincts are telling them to go ahead. They know that the masses will not rise in revolt. The troops themselves are keen because sentry duty in Iraq will mean extra pay. If anything, the families of the troops seem to be keener than the troops themselves.

True, the Americans are being asinine, and not a little difficult, offering Pakistan high hopes and little else. Left to themselves, Pakistan's generals would probably be willing enough to ride on the back of high hopes alone. But they know that a second sucker's deal will put them in bad odour with their own constituents and raise troubling questions about national sanity. So they must have something real to bite on.

It's America's turn to call. It has to make an offer Pakistan's generals find hard to refuse while Pakistan's generals can take heart from the Turkish example. If proud Turkey can do it, so can they.