Editorial
There is something deeply troubling about a state that stops governing itself in order to host others. That is precisely where Pakistan finds itself today. With Washington and Tehran locked in delicate dialogue, Islamabad has effectively pressed pause on its own affairs. The capital wears the look of a city under siege rather than a seat of government. Streets are sealed, movement is restricted, and the ordinary business of the state has ground to a near halt.
The security apparatus, the administrative machinery, the diplomatic corps — all are consumed by this singular exercise. Ministers who should be answering to parliament are answering to protocol. Bureaucrats who should be processing policy files are processing motorcades. The entire weight of the state has tilted toward one event, leaving everything else to drift.
This is not governance. This is performance.
Pakistan’s real crises do not pause for visiting delegations. Inflation does not wait. The unemployed do not wait. The sick in underfunded hospitals, the farmers facing water shortages, the students in crumbling classrooms — none of them have been informed that the government is temporarily unavailable. Yet unavailable it is.
The deeper danger here is not the disruption of a few days. It is the pattern this reflects. Pakistan has long suffered from a governing class more attentive to external validation than internal obligation. Every high-profile visit, every regional summit, every diplomatic overture becomes an occasion to suspend normal administration and redirect all energy toward optics. The country gets managed in the margins, between events.
A nation cannot be run on the logic of occasions. Governance is daily, relentless, and unspectacular. When the machinery of state is perpetually hijacked by the theatre of diplomacy, it is the ordinary citizen who pays the price. Pakistan deserves a government that governs — not one that merely hosts.
