Let it be clear: one man who can stop a war-who knows, even a nuclear one-in the subcontinent is General Pervez Musharraf. It's simple. He has to stop lying. That may be too much to expect from him. The man himself is a lie. The CEO of Pakistan, the child of a coup, was an impostor. Just another piece of renewed horror from the history of Pakistan. President Musharraf is the extension of a lie. Quite characteristic of such a man, Musharraf continues to lie-to his own people (sorry, not really his own people, the people he has taken over) as well as India. That much-awaited speech of his-India is still in the habit of waiting for his speech after every act of Pakistan-sponsored terror-was a hoax. The same old script, with a subtext of nuclear nationalism: there is no infiltration across the border; India's blame-it-all-on-Pakistan ploy; his moral obligation to the freedom fighters of Kashmir; the rise of Hindu terrorism; and, most insanely, the veiled nuclear option. He was testing the legendary patience of India, which has over the years established itself as a masochistic superpower. So, let it be clear, so far he has done nothing to avoid a war.

Musharraf is the man who is standing between India and its national security. Pretending not to see this reality is equal to legitimising the unrepentant tormentor. He belongs to that exclusive club of dictators for whom the Enemy, a nationally captivating doppelganger, is a prerequisite for survival. He is not so qualitatively different from the ruling rogues in Baghdad or Pyongyang. His first fear is about his own mortality. That is why the temptations of the dictators are an expression of paranoia. Today India is the victim of his extraterritorial temptations. He has proved again and again that India, particularly Kashmir, is his only life-enhancing slogan. Post-9/11, his double game-playing anti-terrorist with the US while terrorising India-has acquired a new vigour. The world, at long last, is waking up to the Musharraf menace, marinated in enriched uranium. He is more than a threat to India, he is a threat to the post-Taliban consensus on the evil of terrorism. The mad General is as murderous as the mad mullah, not to speak of the mad General who knows how to use the mad mullahs to his own terrorist advantage. So let there be an honest international rejoinder to the terrorist in uniform.