Politicians sometimes do stupid things for short-term advantage that come back to haunt them with consequences they should have foreseen.
Some Washington insiders say advisers to US President George W. Bush, for example, presented the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as the best scenario to earn him a second term.
But when a military regime claiming to be a nation's saviour and healing force does something stupid and divisive, there is concern for that country's future. This is especially so when the issue is the place of Buddhism - an essentially pacifist religion - in a turbulent nation.
That is the gloomy situation in Thailand, which is trying to find yet another new constitution - its 18th since 1932 - and to heal the mess left by billionaire populist prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted last year after a bloodless military coup backed by the king. The Council for National Security, headed by army chief of staff General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, has been blundering around seemingly unaware that Thailand is a small fish in a big pond, though potentially an immensely rich one if it can sort out its place in the world.
The junta made several blunders on foreign exchange controls and investment. Even a conventional government might have hesitated over some of the controls that this supposedly temporary military regime put into effect to frighten away foreigners. Minister of Finance Chalongphob Sussangkan has steadied the ship, though he has not been able to stop the junta from this week imposing new restrictions on booming foreign supermarkets.
A controversial draft for a new constitution has been published and already attracted much criticism. One of its main faults is that it strives to ensure perfection by balancing interests and restricting the role of politicians. Anyone who knows Thailand would say that the fault of previous constitutions lay less in the charter, or even in the politicians, than in the fact that its supposed guardians - the bureaucrats, law officers and judges - proved easy prey to bribery and corruption, thus undermining the best intentions.