But the general, once again demonstrating his sometimes shaky grasp of history, seemed to be under the illusion that the king was still on the throne at the time of the Russian invasion. In fact, he had been deposed by a cousin two years previously.

The second problem of the era, he said, was that the elites of Afghanistan abandoned the country, fleeing to Europe and the United States as the Russians moved in, leaving the struggle against the invaders to be spearheaded by religious militant groups, among them the 25-30,000 mujahideen, who were brought into the country by the West and Pakistan, and were holed up in the country having known nothing else but fighting. These men coalesced into Al Qaeda.

The creation of the Taliban followed in 1995-96 and Pakistan became one of the three countries to recognise them. But the opening of the Pakistan mission earned a rebuke from president Bill Clinton who asked why Islamabad had extended their endorsement. General Musharraf said that he had told the American leader that everyone should open missions so that the development of the situation could be monitored from within.

'I think that was the second blunder, that we did not do that. As a result, we pushed the Taliban against the wall and we had no way of managing their attitudes and responses,' he said.

'The third blunder which had very serious repercussions, even now, was after 9/11. The opposing groups in Afghanistan, with the Taliban on one side (who were all Pashtuns) and the North Alliance (consisting of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras and the minorities) on the other.

'When the United States operation started in Afghanistan, the Taliban were defeated with the assistance of the Northern Alliance. Having done that I always said there was a requirement for a change of policy now: do not treat all Pashtuns as Taliban. I coined this term: all Taliban are Pashtuns but all Pashtuns are not Taliban. Therefore let's reach out, because they are the majority and historically it has always been the Pashtuns ruling Afghanistan…Even now the Pashtuns have been alienated and the government in Afghanistan is mainly dominated by Panjshiris and Tajiks. The Pashtuns are totally alienated, therefore for these eight years they have been pushed towards the Taliban.'

The general said that after 9/11 Pakistan operated against both the Taliban and Al Qaeda and in the initial stages it was the latter that was in the dominant role, the Taliban having been totally dispersed. 'We acted against Al Qaeda very strongly in the cities of Pakistan and in the mountains, in north and south Waziristan especially. They went down and they now exist in much smaller numbers.'

But he said that as the Taliban was dispersed the opportunity should have been taken to reach out to the Pashtuns, take them on board and wean them away from the Taliban. But that did not happen and the result was the Taliban resurgence of 2003-04. This was compounded by the error of treating all Pashtuns as enemies.

This was now being further exacerbated by all the talk of moderate Taliban — 'I do not understand what are “moderate” Taliban and Taliban. I do understand there are Pashtuns who are not ideologically aligned with the Taliban and there are Taliban.'

This new political approach — the search for 'moderate' Taliban — was further complicated by the fact that it was now being done from a position of weakness rather than strength.

Pakistan, he said, was facing four threats: the first was the threat from Al Qaeda; second, the Pakistani Taliban especially in three of the seven tribal agencies in Pakistan, north and south Waziristan and the Bajur agency; third was Talibanisation, the spread of obscurantist thinking through their view of Islam and trying to spread that through the settled districts of the Frontier Province while the fourth threat was extremism in Pakistani society which was spreading.

Also on the general's agenda of concerns was the rising activity of Islamic groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen, because of the failure to settle the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, and growing extremism among the Muslim youth of India.

All of these problems ran the risk of linkage not only with other movements in the India-Pakistan region but with radical groups in Central Asia, the Maghreb and the Arabian Peninsular. He said Afghanistan was the 'centre of gravity' of the worldwide Islamic instability.

The first requirement in Afghanistan was to defeat the Taliban and install a legitimate government. That could be achieved through flooding the country with troops and speaking from a position of strength not through signalling in advance a withdrawal in one or two years. 'We must show resolve and strength,' he said and that must be done through strengthening the Afghan National Army by getting away from its 70-80,000 all-Tajik composition at the present.

As for the future, the general strongly hinted at a return to politics in Pakistan. He said he would do anything for Pakistan. 'For Pakistan I would be prepared to do anything to the peril of my life. But I can't just take over, I'm a civilian now,' he said to laughter. 'I have to do it through the political process which is good — I will have a legitimacy that I never had. But that's up to the people of Pakistan.'

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