ISLAMBAD, West Pakistan.—Army casualties trickle back from East Pakistan, major West Pakistan cities are holding civil defense drills, prices have risen and the Karachi stock market is down, but none of these things has significantly disrupted life here.
The dry, poor villages of the northern Punjab that traditionally send their sons to the army are not protesting the cost of military action to hold East Pakistan. Neither are Karachi's businessmen close to the point at which they might oppose the military government's policy.
"Their attitude," a Karachi resident observed this week, "is that it's all right if it doesn't cost too much and its not costing too much so it's all right."

WIDE ACCEPTANCE

However, while there is wide acceptance of President Yahya Khan's military attempt to hold Pakistan's two wings together, some Pakistanis doubt it will succeed, and many who believe the nation's unity ultimately will be preserved, acknowledge that such solution is months, if not years away.
"We had to do it," one pessimistic businessman remarked, "but now we're trapped. We're in a tunnel and there is no honorable way to back out."
Most Western diplomats here are also pessimistic about the government's long-term ability to hold onto the East, but Pakistani pessimists are greatly outnumbered by men who believe East Pakistan can be pacified eventually with continued military pressure, a handful of political concessions and international efforts to end India's role in support of the East Pakistani guerrillas.
Whatever their view of the future, few Pakistanis here believe the East Pakistan crisis was of Islamabad's making. Sympathy for East Pakistan's Bengalis ranges from those who dismiss them as racially inferior "little monkeys" to those who believe the Bengalis were misled by treasonous leaders.

WORLD OUTCRY

West Pakistanis from Yahya Khan down, however, are acutely aware of their world outcry that has labelled their military campaign genocidal. As a result, one of the most popular topics here is Northern Ireland.
The newspapers carry numerous reports from Belfast, and Pakistanis ask: If Britain can get away without worldwide criticism, why can't we?
That a tenth of the Northern Ireland population has not fled and that scores rather than hundreds of thousands have been killed there does not destroy the parallel between Ireland and East Pakistan in their minds.
At the belligerent extreme from those who feel Pakistan is trapped in a losing effort is a small group, military and civilian, which considers war with India inevitable and believes Pakistan should strike soon rather than wait until its armed forces are further bled by the guerrillas.
Essential to this is the belief that Pakistan won the 1965 war against India and could repeat its performance or do even better. However, well-informed Pakistanis find foreigners agree that the nation's top leadership is under no delusion about the last war's outcome.
"Whatever myth some people believe about having beaten India, the president and the other generals know they didn't win," one source said. Moreover, government officials and politicians here acknowledged during recent interviews that the military balance has tipped further in India's favor since 1965.
"A defeat by India would have incalculable effect on the fabric of society in the West because the army is all there is—the army is Pakistan." a Western observer remarked.
And the army government's decisions are made by a very few men who do not share their day-to-day thinking with the nation. According to well-informed observers, Yahya Khan and six generals have effective control of all aspects of government.
Pakistan's army is proud of itself and officers remark regretfully that everything would be alright if all things could run as smoothly as the army. Rumors, speculations and lies, Yahya told reporters recently, have aggravated Pakistan's problems. Then he added: "I am primarily a soldier and in the army rumors, speculations and lies are forbidden."
"Thirteen years of army rule is no joke," says Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the most prominent West Pakistan politician. Bhutto, whose Pakistan People's Party holds a majority of West Pakistan's seats in the still unconvened National Assembly, is pressing for an end to the martial law ban on political activity and the beginning of Yahya's promised transfer of power to civilian hands.
The terms of transfer have altered since East Pakistan exploded in violence. Now Yahya's government rather than the elected legislators will write the constitution. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League Party of East Pakistan which won Pakistan's first national elections last December is banned. Mujib is imprisoned and large numbers of East Pakistanis are publicly committed to settling for nothing less than independence.
"There will be some sort of sharing of power with the politicians," one observer remarked, "but I don't think we'll see a real transfer."
Yahya may well stay on as president with a civilian prime minister although he insists publicly that he hates running the government.
"I'm a soldier on temporary duty waiting to be relieved," he said recently. "Yahya genuinely wanted to be a dictator who gave away his power," a diplomat said. "He still wants to."

ARMY SAVAGERY

The president is generally thought to be a moderate in the context of the military hierarchy. Much of the savagery of army tactics in East Pakistan is attributed to Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan who ran the operation from Dacca.
"Tikka is pretty chilling," says one man who has spent some hours with him. He says, 'collective punishment' the way you say "good morning."'
The East Pakistan crisis has not only increased army suspicions of all politicians but of all non-Punjabis.
So far, the crisis in East Pakistan has increased the solidity of West Pakistan's disparate ethnic groups, most observers agree. But there are separatist forces in West Pakistan which would be encouraged should East Pakistan win independence, well-informed observers said.
The Pathan tribesmen around the Khyber pass and the frontier with Afghanistan have as little interest in the East Pakistan crisis as in most activities of the Pakistan government, but if the central government's control, the tribesmen might well seek increased autonomy. About two million Pathan living in a 300-mile long belt on the frontier are at present not under Pakistan administrative authority.
"This is not Pakistan's country," one Pathan living a couple of hundred yards from the road in the Khyber Pass told his visitor. "This is my country."
To a great extent it is. The Pakistan government's writ applies for ony 50 feet on each side of the road. Pathan tribal law rules the rest of the spectacular mountains along the frontier.
Tribal leaders are regularly rewarded for keeping the peace with government import licenses and a blind government eye toward the tribesmen's large-scale smuggling. From time to time, however, disgruntled Pathans boost their incomes by kidnaping prominent Pakistanis and collecting ransom from the government.
Tribesmen from the unadministered frontier also make occasional raids into the settled plains to support their Pathan relatives. In the last major incident, 3,000 armed men rode down from the hills to battle 1,000 Pakistani police in a dispute between tenants and landlords.

BALUCHI TRIBESMEN

Like the Pathans, the Baluchi tribesmen on the Iranian frontier have barely been brought under central authority and Pakistan is well aware that they might also seek to take advantage of any governmental weakness.
So far, the tribal leaders are biding their time, waiting to see how much Yahya and the other generals can salvage from the present crisis.
"The question" says Ali Bhutto, "is really an evolutionary challenge to find a better synthesis for our country." He added, "People must be proud to say they are Pakistanis, not Punjabis, Bengalis or Pathans.
"If the United States had made a mess of its federalism, then people would be saying I'm a Texan, I'm a New Yorker, instead of calling themselves Americans."
A Western diplomat describes Yahya as a man crossing a stream on slippery stones.
"You keep thinking he's about to fall in, but then he makes it a little farther across."
In addition to the internal threats of separatism and potential serious economic disruption, Pakistan also faces a powerful, hostile neighbor—India—and people here are reluctant to guess what the outcome of that mounting confrontation will be.
"The first priority is to try to prevent a war," one diplomat said. "No one wants it," he added, "but you have to throw logic out the window when you discuss Indian-Pakistani relations."
People in West Pakistan are still virtually untouched by the crisis in the east and the threat of war with India, but they are well aware of future dangers.
"Everyone is living day-to-day and week-to-week," one Pakistani remarked. "But we think we can go on this way for a long time."