Normally, when heads of state make a televized statement to their nation, it is because they have something to say. I'm afraid Gen Musharraf's speech last Monday was devoid of anything new, but by raising expectations he disappointed his vast audience around the world.

To be accurate, he did give dates for national and provincial elections, but this task could have been accomplished by the chief election commissioner. However, given the severe erosion of credibility this worthy has suffered after supervising the recent rigged referendum, it is probable that not many people would have believed him. Indeed, after Musharraf's admission that the exercise was partly tainted, many others in the chief election commissioner's place would have resigned, but far too few of our judges have demonstrated this kind of principled behaviour in the past.

But as to the rest of his speech, one fails to see why it had to be made at all: Pakistan's official position has always been that it does not condone or permit militants to cross the Line of Control; that we will not start hostilities, but if war is thrust on us, we will defend our country. What was the point in repeating the obvious?

Many of us had hoped that President Musharraf would try and defuse the situation by promising tougher action against the jihadis. Indeed, this would be no new concession but only a reiteration of the pledge he made in January. However, by releasing most of the 2,000 members of various extremist groups arrested earlier this year, he had indicated a softening of his earlier commitment, something the world community as well as most Pakistanis had viewed with dismay and disappointment.

Let us be clear that action to eliminate extremism from Pakistan is in our best interest, and not something the government should do to placate India or the United States. If terrorists are striking at Indian targets, they are doing the same right here in Pakistan: the killing of French engineers, an American journalist and foreign churchgoers in Islamabad is linked to the same people who are slaying civilians in Indian-held Kashmir. The faces of the killers and the names of their outfits may be different, but their mindset and motivation are identical.

Why did Gen Musharraf feel he had to match Vajpayee's sabre-rattling? Testing missiles at this juncture of heightened tension hardly raises our security. Granted that India conducted similar tests soon after it mobilized its forces earlier this year, but why do we have to mimic our neighbour's bellicose stance?

It is now four years since we conducted our nuclear tests. Are we more secure as a result? One of the reasons Musharraf cited for immediately agreeing to join the anti-terrorist coalition was to protect our 'nuclear assets'. Hello? one thought they were supposed to be protecting us! But on a more serious note, what would have happened had we not responded to India's earlier series of tests? I put this question recently to a distinguished ex-ambassador and he replied that India would then have gone around the world saying we did not in fact have a nuclear device.

So? To this day, Israel publicly denies having a nuclear arsenal but nobody doubts its capability in the field, and yet it has attracted no sanctions or general condemnation. Had we not tested, we would have occupied the moral high ground, apart from reaping considerable financial benefits instead of getting sanctioned to the eyeballs.

The truth is that we have become so used to trying to match India that it is now a knee-jerk reaction with our policy-makers. Indeed, soon after the hugely successful film 'Gandhi' was produced by Sir Richard Attenborough nearly 20 years ago, the government of the day began planning a movie on Jinnah. This was finally produced after much wrangling, and I'm afraid that artistically, it was a disaster. Fortunately for Mr Jinnah and for Pakistan, the producers could get nobody to distribute it abroad and the film has been mothballed after being shown on PTV.

We seem not to have grown up to the point of accepting that India is a far bigger country, and its name and image have an international resonance that ours does not. Pakistan, as a relatively new country, has still to settle on an identity and determine its place in the world. This cannot be done through simultaneously denying our South Asian roots as well as trying to match India in everything.

Above all, we are in denial about the military and economic disparity between the two countries. Even educated Pakistanis insist they are not willing to accept Indian 'hegemony'. But what does this mean? Some people seriously think that India is interested in the break-up of Pakistan. But even the most hawkish Indian probably realizes that such a scenario would cause enormous problems for India and the entire region.

The last thing India could possibly want is millions of more Muslims within its borders. Then there are those Pakistanis who genuinely believe that without Kashmir, Pakistan would be dependent on India for water. But we have existed for 55 years without Kashmir, and our agriculture has grown steadily despite the population explosion we have experienced.After my column last week, I have received several e-mails from jingoist Indians and Pakistanis suggesting that nuclear weapons be used against each other sooner rather than later. Mercifully, I have also got a lot of mail from pacifists on both sides who are basically saying "a plague on both their houses." Contrary to popular wisdom, nuclear capability seems to have made the subcontinent a more dangerous place as its deterrence value appears to be encouraging adventurism on both sides.

Despite Gen Musharraf's assurance that Pakistan is not exporting extremism to Kashmir or any other country, many world leaders, including Bush, Blair and Chirac, disagree, and all of them have urged restraint on Pakistan. It should be possible to establish whether cross-border infiltration is taking place by patrolling the LoC. India has rejected neutral patrolling, but an Indian reader has suggested joint patrols by Indian and Pakistani troops. So what's wrong with this idea? Why can't the military commanders sit down and work out the modalities for its implementation?

Given a modicum of goodwill, tension can be lowered, and eventually, the two countries can return to serious negotiations. But with the current level of insanity and macho swaggering on both sides, it seems that we are doomed to helplessly drift from one crisis to another until somebody finally pulls the trigger. Surely Kashmir is not worth a nuclear holocaust.