Rich and powerful states and individuals often get away with their crimes, while the weak and the poor usually get caught and punished.

So it is with Pakistan: over the years, a culture of lawlessness has developed both internally and in our dealing with our neighbours. Promoting both is the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), an unaccountable and shadowy organization that has been instrumental in making and breaking governments in Islamabad in the past, and is now perceived as being out of control. And as it has been involved in so many shady acts and deals, whenever a terrorist attack occurs in India and the ISI is blamed, much of the world is prepared to believe the charge.

Many countries use covert means to advance their agenda, and risk getting egg on their face when they are caught out. For instance, when French agents blew up the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand to prevent it from sailing out to protest against the French nuclear tests, there was international uproar. Mossad agents are regularly engaged in assassinating Israel's foes abroad, so when a Christian warlord was killed in Beirut last week, fingers immediately pointed at Tel Aviv. The CIA has engaged in countless cloak-and-dagger operations over the decades, and so is blamed for everything that goes wrong anywhere.

But when economically backward and politically isolated states routinely indulge in (or support) lawless acts of violence, they cannot simultaneously hope to get fiscal and diplomatic support. Through a stroke of luck, Pakistan got the opportunity of cashing in on the anti-terrorism bonanza; but it should not expect any support for its reckless foreign policy. The world does not share our distinction between terrorism and freedom struggle. To most civilized people, random violence against unarmed and innocent civilians is morally indefensible, no matter what the cause.

When we allowed Maulana Azhar Masood to move in after he was freed from an Indian jail in the aftermath of the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Afghanistan in the last days of 1999, surely somebody in authority knew we were violating international norms. But to compound this act, Maulana Azhar was allowed to raise the Jaish-i-Mohammad, a group that operated freely in Pakistan and in Indian Kashmir.

When the Srinagar assembly building was attacked and some thirty people killed last December, the Jaish initially claimed 'credit' for this attack but withdrew its claim later. A similar attack on the Indian parliament building on December 13 brought the two countries to the brink of war. Although Pakistan has emphatically condemned this terrorist attack, some of the blame has stuck because of our past support for the Jaish.

Another embarrassment has been caused by the famous list handed over to our government by the Indians. Apart from those Pakistanis released from Indian prisons, there are 15 names of the Indians accused of extremely serious crimes in their own country. Despite official denial of any knowledge of their whereabouts, last year Newsline, a Karachi-based monthly, ran a cover story giving details of the comfortable exile several of these people were enjoying in Karachi under official protection. No denial was issued by the government at that time.

The problem with handing them over, of course, is that there is no telling what they might spill to the Indian authorities to save their own skins. The last thing General Musharraf would want at the height of a military stand-off is a series of shocking revelations or operational details about covert, illegal acts.

In the eighties when Zia and the ISI oversaw the creation of the MQM to act as a counterweight to the PPP, there was an eruption of urban, ethnic terrorism. This flared up again in the early and mid-nineties when the MQM slipped the government leash, and the ISI set up a breakaway faction to take on Altaf Hussain and his party. The government crackdown on the party caused a significant loss of life in staged "police encounters."

This mayhem was the direct result of the state getting involved in illegal actions and meddling in the political process for petty short-term goals. The rise of ethnic violence was parallelled by Zia's encouragement of the madressahs and sectarian parties across the country. The Afghan war spread cheap automatic weapons, and very soon armed militias were taking on a demoralized police force that, apart from being outgunned, was often forced to release these armed militants whenever they were arrested. Thus, Zia and his successors have contributed to the weakening of the writ of the state to the point that militants can openly defy the law of the land in the knowledge that they will get away with it.

In this environment of widespread lawlessness, the state and its organs have become helpless bystanders. We are perceived by foreigners as a country of law-breakers, and whenever there is an accusation against us, no matter how outlandish, there is a tendency abroad to believe it. Pakistanis are now viewed as heroin smugglers, illegal immigrants and terrorists. Our passports, long suspect, are now likely to be rejected by consular and immigration officers in most countries.

Now that General Musharraf is trying to bring Pakistan back into the international mainstream and restore the authority of the state, he will face an uphill task in controlling the thousands of armed militants who, despite their recent reversals in Afghanistan and Kashmir, are still extremely dangerous. His job will not be made easier by the presence of large numbers of fundamentalist sympathizers in the judiciary, the bureaucracy and the army.

In a sense, it is apt that the general should be trying to undo the mischief done by a predecessor, but we cannot draw much satisfaction from this irony as the stakes are too high. If Musharraf fails, there will be no second chance at redemption.