No tears need be shed over the latest and, hopefully, the last of our great turnarounds: this time over Kashmir. It was both inescapable and inevitable.

The knots of our warrior school of thought were intertwined, Afghanistan and Kashmir being salient features of the same strategy. When we untied the one, we were bound sooner or later to untie the other. Only we did not realize it at the time and even while doing a turnaround on Afghanistan insisted there was no question of a change, much less a sell-out, on Kashmir.

Defiant towards India, we told it to "Lay off" - a statement whose irony has multiplied with the passage of time. Caught between an Indian anvil and an American pair of forceps applied relentlessly, we have finally bid a farewell to arms in Kashmir. It is to the past we have taken a giant leap: back to 1989.

India's policy of intimidation on which it embarked in December has been thus amply vindicated. Through the threat of war it has achieved that which it would have been hard put to gain through actual war.

It is behaving like a victor too. In response to the commitment wrung from Pakistan to end support for 'militancy' in Kashmir, it has offered a few crumbs: the recall of a few warships from its western waters; a lifting of the ban on Pakistani flights over its territory; and beefing up its mission in Islamabad.

The world is being expected to take these moves - or de-escalatory steps in the latest American jargon - as huge concessions made by a generous (and forgiving) India as a reward to Pakistan for good behaviour.

To cover its confusion in this trying hour, Pakistan is reduced to laying out another smokescreen (several having been laid since September). Louder than before, it is beating the drum of a meaningful dialogue on Kashmir and asking the international community to throw its weight behind this idea.

Seen in the light of what has been squeezed out of Pakistan, these are plaintive noises. If there has been no meaningful dialogue on Kashmir these last 53 years, is there going to be one now when India rejoices in a triumph which has been so long in the making? Not for nothing is Mr Vajpayee looking ten years younger than his age.

Pakistan's guardians have one standard answer to these multiple retreats from Moscow: that Pakistan had no choice. This is true enough and no doubts should be entertained on this score. A hand caught between an anvil and a hammer has no choice.

This was our predicament in September and although we tried putting a brave face on it, this was also our predicament in December when, to our gathering amazement, the attack on the Indian parliament brought us, the original recruits in America's 'war on terror', into the cross-hairs of the same war. Hoisted on our petard: this is not what we had bargained for.

But Pakistan's guardians still do not say that the policies forged in the crucible of 'jihad' and now abandoned under pressure were in themselves flawed. On the contrary, by insisting on the no-choice argument they imply that there was nothing wrong with those policies. Only the external environment changed in such a way as to make them untenable. This is shirking responsibility.

Pakistan or rather its guardians had no business seeking 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan. They had every right to support the freedom struggle in Kashmir but no business to forge that struggle in Pakistan's image or sustain a policy which amounted to fighting to the last Kashmiri. These were our original sins to which we only lend a false dignity when we harp on the no-choice argument.

If a policy was good, it should not have been abandoned, no matter what the pressure. If it was flawed from the start, and not worth preserving in the face of risk, our guardians (for it is they who call the shots) should have ditched it a long time ago without waiting for September and its grim fallout to catch up with them.

In the event, Pakistan's name has been dragged through the mud. It has received little thanks for the unstinted cooperation extended to the US for its war on Afghanistan and the continuing campaign, much of it within Pakistan, against the scattered and fleeing remnants of the Al Qaeda brigade. Instead, it is portrayed as an irresponsible state harbouring and supporting terrorism while Mr Vajpayee is praised (by our American friends) for his leadership in this crisis. It can't get any worse than this.

But breast-beating is to no avail. We must look ahead. What recent events have done is to show us our worth and standing. Humain apni aukat dikha dee gaye hai. Which is no bad thing provided we draw the appropriate conclusions, the foremost being that we must cut our coat according to our cloth.

What good our huge defence spending when we were the first to blink? Why is defence spending set to increase this year when, if the recent standoff with India provides proof of anything, it is of our peaceful intentions? Was war truly on our doorstep or did we lose our nerve? There has to be an honest answer to this question. Let me not be misunderstood. I am making no plea for going to war, only pointing to the contradiction between a policy of peace, which since September we have assiduously pursued and for which our leadership deserves praise, and a hike in defence expenditure. The two point in opposite directions.

And, pray, what of our nuclear deterrent? In our moment of greatest danger it was less an asset than a huge liability. In happier times our guardians subscribed to the notion that this deterrent gave us strategic cover to pursue other objectives: namely, our Afghan and Kashmir policies.

First in September and then in December, our nuclear deterrent, far from giving us a sense of security, scared the daylights out of us because we were led to believe that in case of war it would be the first target to be struck. This is argument enough for banning the use of the word 'strategic' in Pakistan. It has caused enough mischief over the years.

While we are at the task of ideological restructuring, a thought might be spared for the nuclear and missile monuments which deface many of our cities. Aesthetic eyesores which only underscore the national penchant for boastfulness, it is time they were pulled down and sold for scrap.

Let us be rid of the bluster and the false notions which have plagued our national life for so long. There is no need to sugarcoat our several U-turns. The people of Pakistan see them for what they are. It is the warrior school of thought that has to look afresh at its priorities.

This should be a time for healing, for pulling the curtains on the flip-flops of the last nine months. No matter if Pakistan's cup of humiliation is full. This was the result of illusions nurtured in the past. If we turn our backs on the past we can make something better of the future. But only if we return first to the principle of legitimate government. The military has to realize that it has no monopoly on wisdom or patriotism. From Ayub Khan onwards every time it has decided to walk alone, the country has had to pay a heavy price. Let us not repeat the past.

The choice is not between the summit or the abyss: nothing dramatic like that. If Gen Musharraf chooses, he is still in a position to balance personal ambition with the larger good. But only if he gives up on the dimly-understood ideas of constitutional reform his inner coterie of advisers seems obsessed with.

Pakistan has gone through enough experiments. Over the last nine months it has suffered enough in spirit. It needs a period of calm and healing to regain that buoyancy of spirit which seems missing from the national mood.

Forward then to the elections and out with half-baked theories of presidential empowerment. Given a measure of good leadership (Gen Musharraf still being in a position to provide that) Pakistan has strength and resilience enough to emerge from the shadows into the light.