THIS is the fourth junta in the nation's star-crossed and chequered history and although I am not foolish enough to say that it is the worst - for valour must stop somewhere and discretion begin - it certainly is the most precariously placed.
Pakistan's other strongmen lived in simpler times. The follies they could get away with is not a luxury afforded to a regime which finds itself in an environment infinitely more complicated. Clinton rubbed in some of these points. The principal usefulness and not the least of the ironies of his brief stopover was that it showed us where we stand as a nation. The military government went to absurd lengths to play up to the Americans but what it got for its pains was a lesson in concentrated humiliation, with the American president in effect telling Pakistan to remove the blinkers from its eyes.
Some commentators - an over-populated breed in this country - have drawn comfort from the fact that General Pervez Musharraf stuck to his guns and took no dictation from the American president. Even the gods have no remedy for those living in a fool's paradise. Clinton did not come here to get anything. Since he had persuaded himself to come here for a few hours, he used the opportunity to puncture our complacency and tell us a few home truths. This he did in a very effective manner.
A country more sure of itself would not have put up with such tutoring. But then we do not fall in that category. The afternoon of Clinton's visit we handed over the keys of Islamabad's security to the American secret service and listened quietly as Clinton told us to wake up and enter the real world.
Far from this message grating on patriotic ears, the fact is that for the first time in Pakistan's history many Pakistanis find themselves in complete agreement with what an American president has said. During the cold war Pakistani governments sat in the American lap whereas the Pakistani people were swept by 'Ugly American' sentiments. Not so on this occasion.
Lest we think Clinton's attitude was unusual, we only have to watch the Chief Executive's progress during his South-East Asian tour to realize that he has had to hear much the same lectures from his hosts in Malaysia and Singapore: return to barracks and restore democracy. The wonder is he still gets a kick out of foreign travel.
Part of the problem of course is that there is a disconnect between how we appear to the outside world and how we look at ourselves. The world sees us as a problem-ridden country wedded to extremism in thought and action. We preen ourselves on our atomic capability and what we think is a unique geography which gives us a unique strategic importance. From this flows the conviction that whatever we might do the world owes us a living and that, in any case, no one will allow us to collapse under the weight of our problems. For this mindset there is no cure.
While our national condition has been critical for many years, three successive blunders have brought us close to the edge of the precipice: the nuclear tests of May 1998, the Kargil adventure last year and its sequel in the form of the military takeover.
We had nuclear capability and the world knew it. There was no need to take our firecrackers out of the closet. But panicked into action by a few statements of the Indian home minister, L. K. Advani, we fell into what looks increasingly like an Indian trap and carried out our tests, without coolly considering the pros and cons.
If for once we had allowed judgment to prevail over raw emotion, we would not have been in the desperate straits in which we find ourselves now. Our begging bowl would not have been broken as a consequence but some crumbs or morsels would have come our way. Our begging bowl is intact; in fact it is about the only sturdy thing we have, but nothing can rival its unadorned emptiness.
Kargil was a disaster whichever way we look at it. Forget about anything else, it made no military sense because it was not placed in any strategic setting. But blinded to common prudence by our nuclear tests and the accompanying nonsense that our defence had become impregnable, we thought we could get away with a limited conventional intrusion without inviting a wider response. As the fighting progressed and our international isolation deepened, we started getting cold feet. Eventually we had to back-track but the damage had been done.
We thought we were reactivating the Kashmir issue. It has been reactivated but in a way we never thought of. The growing international calls for respecting the Line of Control and preventing "cross-border terrorism", a formulation which goes against the grain of Pakistan's entire Kashmir strategy in recent years, are the foremost fruits of this ill-considered venture.
As for the takeover, for a brief moment after October 12 it was seen both here and abroad as an opportunity for national renewal. Not any more. If the men on horseback had trimmed their reaction to fit Nawaz Sharif's provocation (his attempt to remove the army chief in a cavalier manner), if instead of digging in their heels they had unfurled a quick plan for civilian restoration, they would have earned the nation's thanks and been hailed as heroes.
The reality has been different. As the shadows of military rule have lengthened, a sense of dejection has spread in the country. The issue is not the army's popularity but the clear-cut realization, born of our experience, that there are certain things the army can do and others it cannot. When the army stands guard over national frontiers, the nation's heart beats with that of its soldiers. But when transcending its real duties the army turns the national arena into a military parade ground, the nation has reason to fear the worst.
It is not as if General Musharraf is a good or bad person. He may have a heart of gold (although the jury might be out on this one too) but that again is not the question. The agenda he has set for himself is unattainable because political and economic revival is not the army's cup of tea. The average politico, or indeed any politico, cannot command a battleship. The average soldier - that is, anyone not Julius Caesar or Akbar the Great - is not up to the successful management of politics. At least not in this day and age when the cold war has become a nostalgic bit of history and military dictators have lost their usefulness as pawns on the global stage.
But what to do? General Musharraf is here to stay and even his local bodies revival plan, the centrepiece of his democratic intentions, comes on a time frame that would put an insomniac to sleep. And yet there is no ready instrument which can help change General Musharraf's mind or compress his timetable.
The internal political scene is dismal. The Muslim League faces a gender crisis. There are more women than men in its upper councils. The only men are Kulsoom Nawaz and Tehmina Daultana. The rest are women. The PPP does not count. The religious parties have pipe-dreams of their own. They cannot come to power (and long may it remain that way) but they are capable of exercising a negative influence. Let us not forget that Talibanism is more a mental than a physical phenomenon and the religious parties are helping to warp national thinking by reducing national debate and discussion to a primitive level.
The chances of any democratic movement arising are therefore nil. If the army returns to barracks it will do so on its own and not because anyone tells it to. So if things must change and Pakistan is to get out of its present abnormal situation, the army has to be a party to democratic restoration. But at the moment the present crop of military riders are in a conquering mood. They do not like being reminded of the past or being told that dark clouds line the horizon.
While Pakistan need not wallow in pessimism, the dangers of political militarism cannot be under-estimated. The horsemen eventually will go back from where they have come. But how much damage to the country and its standing will they have caused in the meanwhile?