Two other features broke through during the last few months: that Musharraf was losing control, and that he had lost touch with what was happening. As for the first, recall how, for months and months, fundamentalists from the Northwest could go on piling up arms in the Lal Masjid right in Islamabad — and the military dictator with all his intelligence agencies should not have known. As for losing touch, recall how gravely Musharraf misjudged the way the public would react to the sacking of the chief justice.

Lessons for us

There has been a veritable industry in India urging concessions: when Pakistan or a ruler of Pakistan has appeared strong, when terrorism sponsored by it and him has been at its murderous height, concessions have been urged on the ground, “but how long can we live with a permanently hostile neighbour?” When he has been facing difficulties, the same concessions have been urged on the ground, “he is our best bet.” Such specious reasoning has almost prevailed when we have had, as we have now, a weak and delusional government, a government that does not have the grit to stay the course; when we have a government over which suggestions from abroad have sway of the kind they have today; when we have a government the higher reaches of which are as bereft of experience in national security affairs as in the government today. We must never sacrifice a national interest in the delusion that someone is the ‘best bet’ — he will soon be gone, and our interest would have been sacrificed in perpetuity. Nor should we ever sacrifice an interest in the delusion that doing so will assuage that ruler, country or ‘movement’.

... contd.