Islamabad, Aug. 14 -- Pakistan has once again dipped into its familiar playbook of indulging in empty and hollow rhetoric against India, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif threatening a "direct response" over water even as Islamabad grapples with a mounting share of crises at home -- from worsening militant violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to unrest and human-rights abuses in Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), alongside the continued imprisonment of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Yet, rather than confronting these failures, Sharif has once again chosen India as the target of his rhetoric.

Sharif, speaking at an event on the eve of Pakistan's Independence Day on Thursday, sought to portray India as an "enemy of ...