THERE is a kind of humiliation which is linked to a chain of iron circumstances. Germany suffered defeat in the first world war and as a result had to swallow the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. We suffered defeat in 1971 and as a consequence had to accept the yoke of bilateralism which is the principal burden of the Simla accord.

The singular thing about the humiliation which Pakistan has suffered as a result of the Kargil adventure - for what else should it be called? - is its gratuitous quality. We brought it upon our own heads, inviting disaster, and then taking almost a masochistic pleasure in debasing ourselves before the flawed Caesar of today's Roman empire. This was self-inflicted humiliation.

But in the anguish which this event has triggered there is a strong element of naivete. Nawaz Sharif, unarguably the hero of this drama, may have tripped over himself. But then, to be honest, would it have been realistic to expect a different performance from him?

Throughout this crisis he was himself, true to his basic instincts. The impulsiveness and shortsightedness which characterized this operation; the total absence of institutional consultation; the panic and wild mood swings when it became clear that the army had bitten off more than it could chew; the lesson in adult literacy at the hands of General Zinni; the dash to Washington dictated by the need to procure a fig-leaf to cover Pakistan's blunder; the first family's photo session with Clinton the morning after the debacle; and, crowning everything, the prime minister's shopping in New York on his way home from Washington - these were things entirely in character.

In emergencies our usual tendencies are heightened, perhaps exaggerated, but not replaced by qualities which are not there in the first place. In a moment of danger a coward does not become a brave man unless there was a dash of bravery in him all the time. Statesmen too are not born overnight; they await their moment. About his being called to lead Britain after the fall of France, Churchill said that all his life seemed to be a preparation for that hour.It is therefore unfair to accuse Nawaz Sharif of not being able to judge the likely consequences of the Kargil operation when forethought or institutional analysis have never had much to do with his pseudo-Mughal ideas of governance. When it has been one of the distinguishing features of the Sharif dispensation to take any number of big decisions either on the spur of the moment or in consultation with a narrow circle of secretive advisers, with the cabinet usually at sea and Parliament being considered an irrelevance, how could it have been otherwise with the Kargil operation?

If one man in his wisdom can decide that there should be a motorway from here to there, that there should be an airport terminal at such and such a place, what should induce him to discover the merits of a broader consultation when an essentially shallow but superficially attractive scheme to out-flank the Indian army in occupied Kashmir is presented to him? It is not far-fetched to say that about as much thought would have been given to this plan as to the various yellow schemes which constitute the principal intellectual output of this government.

If anyone or anything is to be blamed for this disaster it is our stars. Who created the heavy mandate? Its origins lie deep in the bowels of the Zia regime. It was later nurtured by the military intelligence agencies which thought at the time that the highest patriotism lay in sustaining the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, Nawaz Sharif's step to the prime ministership in 1990. But the popular ballast to Sharif's leadership came with Benazir Bhutto's second prime ministership. Without her and Asif Zardari there would have been no heavy mandate. Thus, to paraphrase T. E. Lawrence (who writes to the same effect right at the beginning of his Seven Pillars of Wisdom), the evil of the Kargil humiliation may have been inherent in our circumstances.

As for the inability to curb the passion for shopping even at such a juncture, there is nothing much to be said about it. Leaders of the so-called developing world fall into two categories: they either come in the Mandela or Castro mould - and therefore, not unnaturally, are an endangered species - or they are of the kind who milk their countries and like to shop at Harrods. This is not a matter of taste but of education and culture.

Just as an artist must have an instinctive eye for landscape and line and colour (and the other ingredients of his art) a leader worth the name must have an inherent sense of dignity to realize what enhances or diminishes his country's honour. If he does not, this is not something which is easily taught.

But if Nawaz Sharif is not to be blamed for what he is - indeed if anyone is to expiate for his sins it is the nation which gave him his 'heavy mandate' - the army command cannot shirk its share of the responsibility for the Kargil disaster. No one forced it to undertake this venture for which the planning and preparations must have gone on for a long time. Did it not weigh the pros and cons with the care that was necessary? Did it have to be instructed by a General Zinni into the risks Pakistan was incurring by persisting with this venture?

The army's avowed raison d'etre for looming large in national life is that it is the only organized force in the country, the guardian of its external and internal stability. But if most people in Pakistan happily go along with this claim and think it right for the defence forces to get the lion's share of national resources, they also expect from the armed forces a high standard of conduct and a commensurate sense of responsibility. Small wonder then that when politicians make a mess of things, well-meaning Pakistanis look to the army for deliverance. Mistaken as this belief is, because the army's share in worsening national problems is no less than that of the political elite, the fact remains that it is there.

How cruel the shock then when the army command (not the army as a whole) is seen as being an equal party to the nation's humiliation. At least in Chakwal, the heart of the so-called martial belt from where the army gets its recruits, the feeling against the Washington climbdown runs deep.

The failure of leadership is thus total. By shooting itself in the foot, the army command has diminished its ability to look the civilian leadership in the eye. Accordingly, just when the nation stood the most in need of consultative government, the trend of the last two years towards concentrating power in the prime minister's person is set to become more pronounced. In that case, who or what will temper the fatal simplicities of the heavy mandate?

The prime minister has reduced his own party to a cipher. Other political parties live in press statements alone. In the distance the muffled roll of fundamentalist drums is getting louder. The outlook for the country is grim.