With Afghanistan being purged slowly from our system - it is noticeable how both the anguish and enthusiasm set off by the American onslaught on Afghanistan are draining away - it is time to turn our attention to the state of the stables in Pakistan.
But before proceeding any further a small note of gratitude is in order. Leaving aside the question of whether their war on Afghanistan has been just or not, we have to be thankful to the Americans for curing us of this particular obsession. If September 11 and its aftermath had not occurred, we would still have been stuck with the Taliban and all the myths and half-truths which have defined our Afghan policy these past 20 years.
Like all new converts to a cause we are quite gung-ho about our born-again liberalism. But let us not forget where the original impulse came from. We thus owe a vote of thanks to Colin Powell for putting the matter starkly in his now-famous telephone call to Pakistan's commander-in-chief and supreme leader. He left us no room for waffling.
To say, as I have foolishly been doing since September 11, that we should have behaved with greater dignity, or a greater regard for national independence, is like crying for the moon. Our indebtedness and the guilt complex arising from our support of the Taliban left us with no real choice except to swallow, with what grace we could muster, whatever the Americans wanted to thrust down our throats.
But there is more to it than this. We have been a dependent power since our birth, our leaders more than our people always relying upon external props to shore up the nation's defences or its sense of self-esteem. This will not change unless two things happen: (1) we get out of India's shadow and stop seeing everything through its prism; and (2) for a change we start learning to stand on our feet.
Even nations far poorer than us do not forsake the requirements of national honour so readily as we do. Whether our struggle for independence wasn't hard enough, or because of something in the air of the subcontinent, we have been cursed with a leadership style whose arrogance at home is perfectly balanced by its obsequiousness abroad. I can't say what precisely is the sense of insecurity which lies behind this attitude.
The Afghans have a truly devastated homeland on their hands but even in the midst of all their misery they conduct themselves with greater self-assurance than we do. It took the UN, and US handlers working from the sidelines, nine exhausting days to seal a settlement between the contending Afghan factions in Bonn. Consider for a moment if this had been a conference to settle Pakistan's affairs. Some leader would have been satisfied with a green card for his offspring, another with scholarships for his sons and daughters while someone else would have aimed higher and angled for an arms deal down the road. In any case, it would have taken at the outside two and not nine days to sign an accord.
But these musings aside, the Bonn accord may work or come unstuck when it is tested against Afghan realities. But at least it holds the promise of a "broad-based" government for Afghanistan two and a half years from now. The question that strikes the Pakistani mind is, when are we going to get a broad-based government for ourselves?
At the moment we have a government whose only justification in democratic theory rests upon two shaky premises: a Supreme Court verdict and what General Musharraf claims as the support of the 'silent majority'. But with the supreme commander saying that although national elections will be held he, in the national interest, will continue as president, the future promises to be no different from the past. At this rate, we might find Afghanistan outstripping us in the race for democracy.
This issue is hardly academic. People keep asking what is the Pakistani problem. One does not have to look into the Dead Sea scrolls for an answer. Quite simply it has been our inability to create and sustain a stable polity. What has been the national record? Two and a half decades of wobbly civilian rule matched by two and a half decades of disastrous militarism, with institutions, as a consequence, destroyed and the nation bereft of a sense of direction. Is there a Pakistani dream? If there is, what does it mean? It is not easy getting the right answers.
Every now and then brilliant economists suggest that we need to invest in education and our manpower to attract foreign investment. Investing in education is a political decision and can only come when an enduring political order is in place - an order committed to long-term policies, spread over 25-50 years, and not to the short-term needs, such as those of survival and legitimacy, of insecure leaders. The key, therefore, is politics and how we manage our affairs. Everything else - whether spending more on education, getting money from overseas or enhancing exports - comes afterwards.
Instability in the political sphere, therefore, is Pakistan's bane, destroying continuity of effort and breeding frustration and cynicism in its wake. It is often said Pakistanis are compulsive critics who should be more positive in their outlook. Positive about what? The corruption of their leaders? The incompetence on display by successive relays of mandarins, politicians and generals? The Republic's history is an invitation to rebellion or apathy. A positive outlook, the kind beloved of officialdom or retired salarymen, hardly fits into such a dialectic.
Not the governing class which has proved its bankruptcy thrice over but the common people of the four provinces (and I daresay Kashmir) are keeping Pakistan aloft and allowing it to brave the many storms which have beset its path. But how long must things continue in this fashion? When will we set aside the theatrical accompaniments of ad-hocism and learn to conduct our affairs on the strength of institutions rather than the whim or uncertain competence of individuals?
The cult of the strongman, or even the benevolent dictator, has had its day in Pakistan. Repeated experiments along this line - from the time of the first strongman, Ayub Khan, down to the present - have destroyed the country's elan and vitality, the legacy of military rule being sign-posted with unnecessary wars and foolish adventures. As a result, we can't stand up to our reflection in the mirror. How can we stand up to the US and its bullying?
A grand retreat, therefore, is called for. Not from the great game as played in Afghanistan - the US having taken care of that particular line in adventure travelling - but from the wide, open spaces of Pakistani politics. There is no Colin Powell who will help the Pakistani military to come to this decision. Nor can the 'silent majority' do anything in this regard. The 'silent majority' is living up to its name, choosing to remain silent under all circumstances. This decision must come from within.
The conductor's baton is in the supreme commander's hands. It is he who must orchestrate the new score in which lies the country's hope for the future. Between self-interest and the common good it is only he who can decide - the tribunes of the people, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, being busy with other things. The Beards, and pundits such as myself, are smarting from their Afghan wounds (not that pundits matter in any game of power). Musharraf has the field to himself to do with it as he pleases.
But what do the stars say? The Agra summit and the destruction of the Taliban have been to Musharraf what the French defeat in World War Two was to Hitler: his self-confidence has been bolstered. From this high horse it will not be easy stepping down.
All oligarchs think they are the best definers and arbiters of the national interest. This is their occupational hazard: a mounting suspicion of all opposition and a growing belief in their infallibility. How many times have we not been here before? An experimental lab for would-be saviours: for much of its history this is what Pakistan has been. Surely some witch's spell is at work here. For how else to explain our failure to break out of this grind?