IT is of course politically incorrect to say it is not our war. Factually correct is that we make it more and more our war in extending its theatre within the fluid tribal belt and beyond into the closer-lying federally or provincially administered lands and valleys of our country.

Insurgency in Malakand is now variously conflated with the ousted Afghan Taliban's fight against what they perceive as America's puppet regime.

Fearing the suicide bomber whose breed was initially provoked by our alliance with a US-Afghanistan war our major cities, including some provincial capitals, had inhabitants wishing to close the door on those internally displaced by the magnitude of our army's offensive around the hearths and homes of our people living in Taliban-suspect areas.

The home-province-interest-first attitude about terrorists finding camouflage among peaceable IDPs reinforces the negative fissiparous aspect of provincialism in our country, which, to keep its identity, needs the provinces that constitute the federal republic to perceive greater safety and advantage in sticking together.

In warring in this internationally approved way we have obliterated the problem of national rage at America's drones flouting our sovereignty. We do the equivalent ourselves or ask for assistance, both being self-determined. The logic presumably is that when we inflict our own collateral damage the hurt is lessened. It is true some insult is avoided and repercussive anger diverted. We should think about where it may be headed and how matters may be compounded.

Unless our war is unimaginably swift and victory definitive, it seems unavoidable that alienations with the federal and military authorities will heighten; and that provincial governments will be further debilitated by inter-party power politics in an emotionally fraught atmosphere. Economic distress alone will impose enormous pressures on national solidarity.

History shows Afghanistan and India have a past of not being pro the borders and concept of Pakistan. Our presently preferred attitude is that it is backward-looking and negativistic to harp on old themes. Furthermore, only hawks and bigots fail to see that any secondary status of Muslims in the amiable secularly democratic India is attributable to an adversarial Pakistan's emergence as the Muslim homeland in India rather than vice versa. The Indian Muslim was forsaken and comparatively easier to marginalise.

Gen Zia made the ideology of Pakistan a repugnant phrase and oppressive tool. In this war religious orthodoxy and non-cosmopolitan cultural preference could be misinterpreted by the ruling parliamentary elite the way democratic aspirations were by Gen Zia's Majlis-i-Shoora. It is conventional wisdom that too many of us were in denial about the dimensions of the Taliban threat. But they are not the sole existential threat to Pakistan. Quashing them this way we may be in denial about other ones.

Some favour galvanising lashkars. Even if this does not become a prototype for urban anti-Taliban vigilantism, it could mean Pakistan having to deal with energised conflicted warlords of its own if our war prolongs. That would make the Frontier even more like Taliban-beset Afghanistan with which America has had to do so much. The pity is that even if we fight our war the Af-US way we may still be held responsible for trans-border activities by terrorists. For who can deny terrorist sympathisers are operative in our country when we are being hit by terrorists more than ever, worse than ever?

Part of the grammar of our war is that we are always responsible. Thus Afghanistan and India assert terrorism around their parts is Pakistan-fuelled. They are not to be chided about internal lapses; they are victims. They do not inspire terrorism in and around our soil. Pakistan's security inadequacies may be blamed for the Marriott and the Taj; and its jihadists are unchecked facilitating regional as well as global terrorism. A fleeting positive international aspect is that since Pakistan's army has taken up the chance to prove its mettle eliminating Talibanism, our high command faces less media stigmatisation.

Never mind that one superpower lost its identity in making similar efforts and that the remaining superpower has been battling on for almost a decade without success. If we fail to make headway or to maintain initial gains we may have our commitment disputed as well as our ability. If we can't be depended on to win the war superpowers are ceding to us, can we, for instance, be depended on to protect our nuclear goods from falling into the wrong hands?

Internationally we are urged to have our war but not our nuclear arsenal. Is India allowed its nuclear arsenal because terrorists in India would never overstep the line?

It is true that fanatics among the Hindu community will never have Al Qaeda's kind of demography. Pakistan, like every culturally emphatic Muslim country, may always be suspected of 'Islamist' extremism, particularly volatile if combined with objections to perceived external interventionism and expansionism.

Specifically, Pakistan had a long close relationship with Afghanistan's Taliban regime. It is edifying to recall that pre 9/11 American corporate interests were not above making use of that situation. Geographically, Pakistan cannot displace itself nor physically distance itself from tribal mores and ethnicities. Nor can its government run foul of orthodox sensibilities throughout its Muslim length and breadth. But this sensibility, in its norms as well as its zeal, is not yet become kin to the Taliban's political vision.

It would be naïve to argue Afghanistan's ousted Taliban and their sympathisers are not waging a guerilla war of attrition. We have now allowed ourselves to be sucked deeper into its vortex. The animus focused on Isaf, Nato and US troops in Afghanistan includes Pakistan's troops and Pakistan's soil with a quite different scope and intensity.

How far is the theatre of war liable to be extended and how to keep it from becoming endemic in Pakistan, not just Afghanistan?

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Pakistan lived with the fear of hot pursuit and more. In this war Pakistan lives with the fear of hot pursuit and the prospect of pre-emptive measures from its avowed ally, not a proxy opponent. Is Pakistan in Blunderland, fighting a looking-glass war?