ONE does not need to have Mao Zedong’s eyes to see that “everything under heaven is in utter chaos”. There is no continent in the world (except perhaps his China) where conditions are in the control of its leaders. In France, for example, students in the country’s lycées, or secondary schools, are demonstrating against “long school days, overcrowded classrooms, outdated facilities, and teacher shortages”. The protesters are 15- to 18-year-olds. They are too young to vote. Yet their anger threatens to detract from the presidential election in early 2027, when France decides who is to replace Emmanuel Macron.
In South America, countries with valuable natural resources and precious minerals are bracing themselves for a raid by the US. If oil-rich Venezuela can be decapitated overnight, can Brazil, Chile and Argentina be far behind? In Ukraine, an embattled Volodymyr Zelensky finds he has now two adversaries — a determined Vladimir Putin, and a mercurial Donald Trump, who has suggested that the Ukrainians “get a new leader who can make a deal”. The abandonment of Zelensky came a day after Trump agreed to buy diesel from Putin.
Historians who will chronicle the decline and fall of Trump’s presidency may do worse than rely upon Edward Gibbon’s memorable analysis: “But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest… . … Instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.”
In and around the Arabian Peninsula, the US-Israel vs Iran conflict has taken a sinister turn. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have entered into a defence pact. Saudi petrodollars have linked arms with Türkiye’s armament capacity and Pakistani martial manpower. It is less a tripartite alliance than a pas de trois of death. Few realise that this tripartite pact has inbuilt weaknesses. The three countries are not territorially contiguous.
Historians may do worse than rely upon Gibbon’s analysis.
This new pact purports to imitate the collective defence clause of Article 5 of Nato, which means that should Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Türkiye be individually attacked, the other two will have to spring to the victim’s defence.
Türkiye is a card-carrying member of Nato. If it is involved militarily, all other Nato member countries will be bound to ‘defend’ Türkiye, and, therefore, by extension Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. That is the legal theory. Practically, Nato’s selectivity has already been tested during the Ukraine crisis. Even though Nato did not extend the umbrella of membership to Ukraine, it chose to defend Ukraine (a non-Nato country) against Russia. Obviously, Nato members and Trump follow Machiavelli’s precept: “He who has the power is always right.”
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan share some commonalities. Each has a Sunni majority, and all three currently have governments that are intolerant of domestic opposition.
Recep Erdogan’s government in 2025 imprisoned his most popular rival — Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. In 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the detention of over-rich princes and government ministers in the five-star Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, where many were allegedly tortured. In 2018, Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered by a squad of 15 Saudis (allegedly on the orders of their crown prince) in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
And here in our country, a leader and his party members — regardless of gender or age — have been sentenced to imprisonment, without the hope of an amnesty.
Our federal government is in opposition with smaller provinces — it has imposed an emergency and governor’s rule in KP. Azad Kashmir has had governments drawn from two Pakistani mainstream political parties. The continuing friction brings to mind these lines from Kahlil Gibran’s poignant poem Pity the Nation: “Pity the nation divided into fragments/ each fragment deeming itself a nation.”
Not many leaders have the time nor the wit to read Gibbon’s six-volume work on the Roman Empire, or the Meditations bequeathed by the emperor he admired most — Marcus Aurelius. They should. Core lessons derived from Aurelius point to five signs of a weak mind: ‘Surrendering control to external circumstances; complaining and playing the victim; seeking external validation and obsessing over others’ opinions; letting uncontrolled emotions dictate actions; and resisting the present moment and avoiding duty.’
How many leaders — or even us common folk — would survive such a litmus test?
Many regard the chaos prevailing everywhere as deeply ominous in its implications. The pin has been removed from the grenade. It is only a matter of time before a doomsday detonation.
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2026
