No US president has time for first the president and then the prime minister of a begging-bowl country. So if President Bush met Gen Musharraf in New York and then took time out for Mr. Jamali in Washington, there had to be a purpose to it, especially in a land where free lunches are considered a bad investment.

The key to all this bonhomie lies - you've guessed it - in Iraq. The Iraq mess is not just another international disaster. It's getting to be another Vietnam, that too in a compressed timeframe. The almost daily toll of American lives and the billions of dollars (87 to be exact) the US Congress is being asked to cough up to sustain this holy mess now threatens Bush's re-election bid. If this mess continues in present form the next US president will not be George W. Bush.

This is the spectre haunting the Bush White House. And the only quick-fix answer to it lies in sending foreign troops to police Iraq. To ease the burden on American GIs who were eager for a quick triumph but who hadn't the faintest idea that the Iraqi sense of a ticker-tape welcome might take the shape of rocket-propelled grenades, the favorite weapon of the Iraqi resistance.

India is off the hook, there being no sign at the moment of Indian readiness to rush to America's rescue in Iraq, Secretary of State Powell admitting as much. Had it only been up to the Vajpayee/Advani government, things might have been different. But Indian public opinion is proving difficult. This leaves the other prime candidates, Turkey and, well, Pakistan.

The Turks are tough negotiators and will drive a hard bargain. Pakistan, however, is a soft target and the very soul of generosity. In fact, always has been, as far as the US is concerned, the soul of generosity: doing backbreaking and perilous duty for illegal immigrants' wages.

It's another matter the US has never appreciated this, has always turned its back on Pakistan when the dirty work was over. Which still hasn't stopped Pakistan from rushing to carry America's burden whenever higher duty has called. What price such selflessness?

Whenever American foreign policy needed Pakistan, it has been there. A member of anti-communist alliances in the 1950s, helping fly Henry Kissinger to China in 1971, helping the CIA defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and becoming a launching pad for America's war on Afghanistan in 2001.

Any wonder then if it is Pakistan, more than any other country in the world, the Bush White House is working on to get mercenary troops for Iraq? President Musharraf has been on board from the start. All he's asked for is a fig-leaf which the US is now going about procuring in the shape of a new UN resolution. What remains is to soften Pakistan public opinion and to drum up visible political support for a dubious proposition. Hence the welcome mat put out for Mr. Jamali.

Did Mr. Jamali bring up other subjects with Bush? Say, the growing arms imbalance with India, Kashmir, or the dim prospects of an India-Pakistan dialogue? The only issue on the Bush administration's radar screen at the moment is Iraq and Bush's re-election bid. Between now and December 2004 nothing in the world matters except these twin objectives: pacifying Iraq and making sure Bush stays in the White House for four more years.

How does Kashmir or any other arcane subject figure in this equation?

Who would have thought Pakistan would be a factor in a US presidential election? But the furies be praised, it's come to this, Musharraf and Jamali becoming bit players in Bush's re-election strategy. If they play ball, Bush's chances suddenly look brighter.

What's more, Musharraf and Jamali lead a country which, guided by a quaint sense of chivalry, has always prided itself on performing the most stupendous tasks on the cheap.

Here's the latest sample of this generosity. Pakistan's defense secretary, Lt Gen (rtd) Hamid Nawaz Khan, returns from an arms-buying trip to Washington and breathlessly declares a "breakthrough" in arms sales. What does it amount to? A squadron or so of F-16s from Belgium - to be paid for in cash on the table. And a few other items of weaponry to be bought out of the aid package the US has thought fit to reward Pakistan with for its services in Afghanistan and cooperation in the "war against terrorism".

According to Pakistan's English daily newspaper Dawn, Lt Gen Hamid Nawaz Khan, highlighting the achievements of his Washington trip said,  "The US officials had offered that if Pakistan sent troops to Iraq, then they would show 'great leniency' in the sale of equipment to it."

Furthermore: "In reply to a question what Islamabad had been given in return for extending cooperation to Washington, he said Pakistan had got security and elaborated 'the Indians would have done the same to Pakistan what Northern Alliance had done to the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan'."

In other words, we have it from the country's highest defense official that America's biggest gift to Pakistan was security and that but for the US, India would have destroyed Pakistan post-September 11.

Just to refresh minds about what we are getting from the US: a three billion dollar package spread over five years. Which is about 600 million dollars annually, half of this amount as economic assistance and the other half for military sales. That's about it. What's more, Congress has to approve this package every year. And if we send troops to Iraq, all we can count on is "great leniency" in the matter of arms sales. That's about it again. No special package as in Turkey's case. Chances are the American officials dealing with Pakistan will be the most dumbfounded at this cheap bargain.