THE government has made a glorious mess of the Raymond Allen Davis case. It started off on the wrong foot and has been stumbling since. Stunned by the news that the US citizen, seemingly a diplomat, had killed in RoboCop style two Pakistanis while a vehicle coming to his aid had crushed another, the entire government machinery chose the most convenient response: to fall into grim silence.

While the media was putting out information, true and false, at the speed of light, about the identity of the killers and the victims, neither the Foreign Office nor the interior ministry had any word to say on the matter. This left the field open for the Punjab government to respond to the crisis.

Saving its public skin, and striking a populist chord, the PML-N leadership went by the established procedure to deal with the broad-daylight murder. That landed Mr Davis in police custody. For almost a day and a half, it was Lahore and not Islamabad that was dealing with an ugly foreign-policy situation.

Not much has changed since except that the US embassy is now claiming immunity for Mr Davis from the federal government instead of asking Nawaz Sharif to intervene and facilitate his release. The federal government has broken its silence.

However, it is continuing with its abdication of responsibility. Now it wants the court to formally seek basic information on Mr Davis's status. This will happen in another week. Foolishly, the government is treating the issue at hand as a purely technical matter, falsely believing that a delay in court proceedings may buy it time to untie the knots around its hands. The PPP leadership has directed its ministers to keep quiet until the court speaks. Its allied parties including the ANP have decided to keep mum on that score.

Everyone in government and the Foreign Office is now looking to the court for direction. Practically speaking, the Lahore High Court is in charge of a vital foreign policy issue with grave domestic implications.

In the meanwhile, the religious and opposition parties combine has turned the case into another power play on the field of agitation. The public was already angry at the horrific manner in which the US citizen had conducted himself. Opposition politics has turned the national mood completely against the idea of any relief being provided to Mr Davis.

The passionate appeals of the victims' families have reinforced the demand for swift justice even if diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention is established as applicable to Mr Davis. At the moment, public opinion is like a pressure cooker. The government is in a much tighter spot now than before.

Was an alternative path available to the government? Of course there was. After overcoming the initial shock of the incident, it should have shared with the Punjab government what it now will be forced to with the public on court orders, i.e. the question of who is Raymond Allen Davis.

It could have defined his status instead of turning him into a mystery murderer who despite having had multiple visas from three different Pakistani institutions and having lived in Lahore and Islamabad for years is yet to be attached to an authentic professional and personal profile. The mystery would have been even more intriguing if copies of Mr Davis's passport had not been obtained by reporters.

That the government has not taken the easy path of revealing his identity has caused increased suspicion that the man is part of the CIA network in Pakistan, which operates with tacit official approval and is seemingly deployed to gather intelligence on urban terrorists.

Pakistani officials deny such a foreign presence on its soil but the facility with which Mr Davis has been operating inside Pakistan and the murderous desperation with which his colleagues tried to extricate him from the mess he created in Lahore make these denials look fairly vague.

But there are other, more worrying concerns. This case shows how chaotic and disorganised the state machinery can become when faced with a sudden and unexpected challenge. The absence of coordination between the centre and the Punjab government in the Davis case is as appalling as the game of passing the buck that the Foreign Office and the interior ministry have played.

Everyone thought that it was someone else's job to tell the real tale of Mr Davis. This can only happen in a system where parallel structures are running foreign policy. Apart from the army and the intelligence agencies, the interior ministry has itself been acting like a policymaking caucus. One can add to the brew the presidency's separate 'independent' channels with foreign governments and throw in the fact that many of Pakistan 's missions abroad, including the one in Washington, operate in their isolated orbits driven by ambitious individuals.

This completes the ugly picture of what decision-making has become in Pakistan. On whose watch Mr Davis came to Pakistan and whose responsibility it was to confirm or deny his diplomatic status are questions that are lost amidst competing, clashing institutional interests.

All said, more delay in revealing his identity is not serving anyone's interest; if anything it is making the government's position more awkward. Throwing light on Mr Davis's category now can save the government much embarrassment later.

The writer is senior anchor at DawnNews.