Shahid Afridi must be yearning for Pervez Musharraf right about now. India-Pakistan relations have steadily worsened since the 2008 Mumbai attacks but no humiliation can match the refusal of the IPL franchises to bid on a single Pakistani player. We may hate India but our cricketers want to make their money there. The various teams figured out that investing in Pakistani cricketers made no sense since they might not get visas. Given the deterioration in relations between the two countries, that might have been a wise business decision, even though it will only create more resentment in Pakistan.

Just in the last few weeks, there have been three border skirmishes that have taken the lives of one Pakistani and one Indian soldier. Then there were the remarks of Indian army chief Deepak Kapoor that India could simultaneously fight Pakistan and China which we took as a virtual declaration of war, forgetting that Kapoor was only — injudiciously, it must be said — hypothesising.

It is tempting to blame Asif Zardari for this, as we blame him for everything. But it is the judiciary that let Hafiz Saeed free (although the government showed no interest in winning the case) and it is the army which dug its heels and refused to let the ISI chief go to India after the Mumbai attacks. The army has always meddled in foreign affairs and steps it up a notch when the PPP is in power. Basically, the army has rigged the game. If you want peace with India, we have to be in power. If we are not in power, we will throw tantrums.

That is why Musharraf was able to make overtures to India in a way that Zardari can’t. Musharraf had already burnished his hawkish credentials with the Kargil fiasco and didn’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back.

What the government should do, though, is get Rehman Malik to stop spouting “foreign hand” nonsense after every terrorist attack unless he can back it up with evidence. This evidence, he keeps promising us, is there and will be made public at the appropriate time. Does he seriously believe that unsubstantiated claims that the Indians are the Taliban’s puppet masters advances our foreign policy goals?