WHEN the raft of changes in the Foreign Office were first announced in October, they were well received as sensible, by-the-book appointments of career professionals. A new foreign secretary and a number of key ambassadorial appointments had been awaited since the PML-N government came to office in June, but the delay was perhaps explained by the fact that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had decided to keep the foreign ministry portfolio for himself. What is inexplicable though is what has transpired since. Chopping and changing assignments, swapping out the foreign secretary-designate before he could even return to Pakistan, then allowing uncertainty over the final appointments to continue for days and now weeks — it is an entirely unnecessary and terribly messy situation the government has created for itself.

The root of the problem appears to be Mr Sharif’s decision to not appoint a foreign minister. To the extent that national security and foreign policy are linked (the prime minister also kept the defence portfolio with himself until the missing-persons issue in the Supreme Court triggered the hasty appointment of Khwaja Asif as defence minister) and that Mr Sharif was expected to try and create more space for civilians in those arenas, perhaps the decision made sense. A prime minister issuing orders or steering policy necessarily brings more clout to the table than a cabinet minister. But then Mr Sharif has done little on either the national security or foreign policy front to justify his decision to not appoint a full-time foreign minister. If that were not poor leadership enough, the prime minister compounded the problem by appointing two senior advisers to run the foreign ministry on his behalf. Sartaj Aziz’s and Tariq Fatemi’s respective credentials may be impeccable, but organisations and ministries need clarity at the top: who is in charge and who has the final say? Leaving that essential question unanswered has triggered the inevitable bureaucratic turf war — or even if perhaps not a turf war, just the sense of divisions that can be exploited by various camps within the foreign ministry.

At this stage, to simply quickly confirm the ambassadorial appointments and the next foreign secretary will no longer be sufficient. Mr Sharif will need to reconsider his decision to not appoint a full-time minister or, at the very least, establish what Mr Aziz and Mr Fatemi are individually in charge of and responsible for. In addition, the prime minister needs to inject some life into his foreign policy – on ties with India, Afghanistan, the US and Iran in particular. Drift and platitudes are not meaningful policy alternatives.