A strange pantomime Pakistan is being subjected to in these trying days. Kicked from all sides, it is also being asked to drink deep of the cup of humiliation.
Serving under the American flag in Afghanistan was supposed to have saved us from this. Weren't we told in ringing tones that by joining the Americans we had saved our nuclear assets and our Kashmir policy? Now it turns out that the most endangered thing of all is our stand on Kashmir. As for those wretched assets, we were told that they were meant not for anything as grandiose as national sovereignty but for facing up to India. Now as India turns up the heat on Pakistan, they seem to be of no use in that direction as well.
It's not as if Pakistan is being obdurate. After the attack on the Lok Sabha General Musharraf has been bending over backwards to take account of Indian sensibilities and do everything in his power to dissipate the war clouds gathered on the horizon. Yet India, as traders and shopkeepers in the subcontinent are wont to do, is trying to squeeze the last ounce of advantage from Pakistan.
As for Pakistan's great ally, the US, for whom it has done such loyal yeoman service in Afghanistan, far from asking India to cool it, it is pressuring Pakistan to do more to satisfy India. This is the security we have bought for ourselves by signing on as America's bag-carrier in Afghanistan.
We caved in to American demands earlier, saying that the 'national interest' - the last resort of the weak at heart - left us with no option. Now, for the very first time in Pakistan's history, we are trying to placate India because our allies, the US and Britain, are telling us that that is the highest expression of our national interest.
It's not as if we are not playing ball on Kashmir. We have already put Kashmiri 'jihadis' in the dog-house and are promising to do more. With a logic whose force the military government has taken some time to understand, the U-turn on Afghanistan is being followed by another historic U-turn on Kashmir. Yet India, professing lordly dissatisfaction, is asking for more.
Kashmir indeed is no longer the issue. On that we are already delivering. The image holding India in thrall is that of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The bedraggled figure of Arafat, reduced to the last vestiges of despair, is what India would like us to be. Let us be clear about the basics.
Our Taliban-support policy in Afghanistan was wrong and when September 11 happened it was only natural that the stuffing should be knocked out of it. Similarly, the tamasha that we made of the struggle in Kashmir, giving the Masood Azhars and the Hafiz Saeeds a free run of the country, was criminal folly and should have been ended long before September 11. This was no way to conduct foreign policy or to run any kind of struggle in Kashmir. We are now paying not for our sins but our foolishness, a history of errors accumulated over the last decade. (When will ISI learn its lessons?)
But to do something on one's own steam is one thing, being pushed to do the same thing is quite another. One moment our leaders say, "Lay off", an odd choice of words if ever there was one. The next they are striding across a Kathmandu stage to grasp Vajpayee's unwilling hand. If the first was inappropriate, so was the second. Such things play to the gallery. They make little impression on flint-hearted politicians who have been playing the game for forty years.
The men-in-charge in India consider this one-upmanship. They didn't like Musharraf's breakfast speech at Agra. Vajpayee, as we saw, treated the handshake with some disdain. We shouldn't be putting ourselves in such a position. Eschewing jingoism and being restrained in word and deed is all right but a time comes when nations have to stand up for themselves. India is pushing us to that point sooner than it thinks.
If this is no time for belligerence, it is also not for another cave-in. All our foreign well-wishers (may we be rid of them), from Blair and Powell downwards, should be told enough is enough. The machinery of Kashmiri 'jihad' we have dismantled and are in the process of dismantling what remains of it. If India is not satisfied with this, so be it.
If it is in a bullying mood nothing that we do will satisfy it. We should not be mounting the housetops, something at which we are very good. With quiet resolve we should be saying that the steps we have taken - radical and revolutionary in the context of the Kashmir policy we pursued for over 12 years - speak for themselves. Take them or leave them, beyond this point we will not be pushed.
In any case, there can be no concession over the 20-man list demanded by India. Let us deal with these men, if we have to, ourselves. But handing them over to anyone else should be out of the question. This should be made clear to the godfathers to whose tune we seem intent on dancing.
Everything India has done so far makes it clear that it wants to do a Munich on us and so far, to oblige it and our steadfast allies in distant lands, General Musharraf, quite discarding his "lay off" words, is playing Chamberlain to Vajpayee's subcontinental or cardboard version of Hitler. Unless we are to forfeit what remains of national self-respect and honour, beyond this point there can be no retreat.
Conflicts in the past we have instigated. This one is being foisted on us. The mood in Pakistan is not warlike. No one in Pakistan, not even the lunatic fringe, wants a war with India. Forget nuclear weapons, no one even wants a conventional war. This was exactly the mood that prevailed in Britain prior to Hitler's attack on Poland in 1939. But when most people there, finally heeding Churchill's warnings, got a better measure of Hitler's intentions, the mood swiftly changed. After Munich there was no retreat. After the attack on France six months later, there was a clamour for Churchill to take charge of the nation's affairs.
With a military government around, we are stuck for choices. It is Musharraf alone, with some help from his generals, who must play all roles by himself. So far, with no little tutelage from the US, he has been straining his neck for peace. But unless we are to be caught unawares he must also now summon the nation's sleeping resolve. Enough of being pushed around. We have to make a stand somewhere or else be resigned to a fate reserved for history's capitulationists.
We talk of the great Mustafa Kemal without understanding what he did. When at the close of the First World War Turkey was brought to its knees, he discarded the baggage of Turkey's Ottoman past ruthlessly. But when it came to defending his country he brooked not the slightest compromise.
The Greeks, with British backing, crossed the Bosphorus and swept across Turkey. Defying the victorious Allies, Mustafa Kemal fought the invading Greeks and defeated them, sending them fleeing across the sea. Later he stared down the French over the possession of Alexandretta (now Iskendurun). He is Ataturk (Father of the Turks) not for his secular reforms, far-reaching as they were, but for the way he rallied his people in their darkest hour.
We are not seeking war, and thank God for that. But should we shirk its burdens if it is forced on us? The French collapsed in 1940 before the attacking Germans not for want of men or materiel, the French army then having a hundred divisions. They had not the spirit to fight. Let not the same be said of us.
Let us not sound the drums of war as we have done often in the past. But let us be prepared for the worst. And, please, let us stop taking lectures from the Americans. If they were really concerned about our welfare they would be telling the Indians where to stop. In an emergency, however, we'll be left to our own devices to defend our honour and integrity as best as we can.
What are we afraid of? We have half a million men under arms. Isn't that enough? In seeking peace with India let us be guided by the example of Mandela. But in resisting aggression let us be guided by the spirit of Hamas.Soon I shall be sending a request to GHQ to be allowed to join the colours should hostilities be forced on us. Air Defence, my parent arm, is now more sophisticated than it was in the relatively primitive times of 1971. I would not be much good for it now (not that I was much good for it then). Should my request be accepted, an infantry battalion, preferably where the weather is not too cold, would do just fine.