Some sage has said: Everything is fair in love and war. If the sage is still alive he should visit Pakistan. When he has just a glimpse of our politics, hell curse himself for misinforming the world with his maxim. He will burn the maxim and declare: What is fair in politics is not fair even in love and war. Our politicians are flying at each others throat. Luckily, they have very strong throats. These throats are not easily crushable. But the political chaos is crushing the masses. They are crying. Whenever the masses cry, the politicians advise them to be patient. They ensure the masses that only patience can solve their problems. There is no panacea like patience. Musharraf has claimed that in 1999 Pakistan was on the verge of destruction. The implication is that he saved the country from collapsing into a rubble-state. Lets concede that he did save the country from degenerating into a failed state. But what did he do with the country he claims to have saved? Did the country grow into a stable state under his presidency? Only the masses know. Politically, Pakistan has always been a pile of rubbish. Almost every government contributed its own quota of rubbish to the rubbish heap. Today, the heap has gained almost Himalayan heights. For sometime Musharraf kept his lips sealed. What he wanted to utter kept boiling in his heart. The heart felt the pain. Eventually, the lips pitied the heart. They rebelled and broke the seal. Musharraf was now free to utter what he was dying to utter. He fired volleys of verbal missiles at some politicians. He dubbed former Prime Minister Jamali a lair. He denounced the Chaudhrys as liars. He condemned Nawaz Sharif as a liar. The missiles must have given him immense spiritual relief. Would the 'liars hit back in the same coin? Lets wait and see. Musharraf has confessed that he did make some mistakes. He has expressed his regrets for the mistakes. Were the mistakes accidental happenings or deliberately calculated political ploys? Lets not ask silly questions. Unfortunately, Pakistans entire history is a history of political disasters. Musharrafs presidency was just one of such disasters. All these disasters had a common mission. The mission was to crush the masses. But the technologies used for the crushing varied from government to government. Each government evolved a technology of its own to ensure that its technology was more effective as compared with other technologies. Each technology was a great success. Natural disasters come and go. They play havoc only periodically. But our political disasters have been in action ever since the countrys birth non-stop. They hate to have even a moments siesta. Some of the topmost Pakistanis have their permanent residences abroad. Pakistan is just a picnicking resort for them. They also have their clinics abroad. If a top-class Pakistani suspects that his body is misbehaving, he flies straight to his clinic in the West. He does not trust the Pakistani doctors at all. He has a sound reason. He firmly believes that nature has manufactured him with a very special kind of flesh of which the Pakistani doctors have no knowledge at all. When Musharraf exiled himself from Pakistan, he bought an expensive residence for himself in London. From his London abode, he keeps watching Pakistan through his political telescope. The chaos in Pakistan has encouraged him to jump into the political arena once again. When he left Pakistan, he left it in a horrific chaos. If he got power again, would he be able to make atonement for his mistakes? Only time can tell. However, if he got power again and failed again, it wouldnt matter at all. He would join the company of Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, each of whom got power twice and failed twice. There is a great possibility that he would enjoy the company. It is a mystery that so far Nawaz Sharif has not reacted to Musharrafs taunts. The party activists are disappointed. They are pressuring him to hit back. There is a strong probability that Musharraf is feeling disappointed by Nawazs silence. Had Nawaz reacted, it would have given Musharraf another opportunity to fire another volley of taunts. There is a general feeling that Nawazs silence is twirling like a thorn in Mush-arrafs thigh. The writer is an academic.