Sad. For a nation of their size, 24 fighters would do, if nothing else than to exemplify national pride, and that terrorists might think twice.
Yes - they wouldn’t need a large force, but it also means you keep the skills intact for the future. Even if they’d just kept their last Skyhawk squadrons flying, at least you’ve got pilots flying and mechanics doing their job, meaning it’s easier to upgrade later. Now, they’d have to rebuild from scratch.
And the Skyhawks still had some credibility - equipped with Sidewinders they were a lot better than nothing.
Would have been better still if the F-16 purchase hadn’t been cancelled - but even after that, they could have maintained something worthwhile.
Actually, technically, they do have 17 Aermacchi MB-339s in storage, so if they trained pilots and ground crew, they could have some sort of force. And again the Aermacchi can handle Sidewinders and Mavericks. It’d be better than nothing.