This mindset about the Muslims being more martial than the Hindus and that they have a manifest destiny to prevail, is not shared by all Pakistanis. Certainly it is prevalent in the Pakistani army, ISI, a large section of the clergy and certain sections of the political establishment. While Pakistani mythology, partly reinforced by the Hindu extremists, had it that India was ruled for eight hundred years by Muslims, the myth received a further boost with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan after nine years of campaign against the mujahideen. The jehadi cult was inculcated in them at that time by the Wahabi clergy under the supervision of the ISI with the support of the CIA.

They believed they had defeated a superpower and were prepared to take on the remaining superpower and others. The Kashmir terrorist campaign, Talibanisation of Afghanistan and 9/11 followed. The Pakistani army and the ISI believe that they were able to outsmart the US and extract their acquiescence in their acquiring nuclear and missile capability from China. Even after 9/11 they have been able to milk the US for military and economic aid while giving in return, in Obama’s words, very mixed results in the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

This sense of manifest destiny, and their own myth-making, their overconfidence in their ability to outwit the US, gave them as they did to the Nazis — a sense of their superiority and the inevitability of them emerging victorious. This is not a universally shared feeling in the Islamic world. But this cult intensely believed in by the Pakistan army and the ISI led to the Kargil war and poses an international threat in the Af-Pak region. Kargil was an episode in the campaign of this jehadi cult.

... contd.