New York: Pakistan is a nation of confounding murkiness where every kind of deception, collusion and outright sham are recurring motifs in political theatre, according a media report published in New York.

Much of the trickery is institutionalized. "The ISI - the shorthand name for the military intelligence agencies – is widely presumed to be an expert puppet master, the great Oz of a manipulated society," says an article in 'New York Times' magazine.

The article expresses concern that government could lose control over the nuclear weapons in a country driven by sharp regional, religious and ethnic divisions and says that its military ruler Pervez Musharraf is more guided by self-interest to keep himself in power than his professed love for democracy.

In the past 25 years, it says, American policy towards Pakistan has largely been devised to fit the events happening in Afghanistan. But politically, the country has been "reliably unsteady" with democracy yet to take roots.

As an example, the article says, the US response was very tepid even after it was disclosed that Islamabad had been swapping vital nuclear secrets with North Korea in exchange for ballistic missiles in late 1990s. The Bush administration imposed sanctions against just one laboratory because Musharraf had joined its fight against al-Qaeda.

PTI