IT`S not really paralysis. It`s not quite suspended animation.

It`s not even fear or uncertainty. It`s just nothing.

Nawaz was supposed to be the leader who could. Instead, he`s become the leader who can`t. What`s going on? But before that just how bad are things? Bad. Really bad.

Here`s how a typical meeting with the boss plays out: minister, courtier or supplicant lays out the lie of the land; Nawaz listens, then listens some more; minister, courtier or supplicant senses the boss doesn`t want to say anything, so he sketches out the options himself.

Nawaz keeps listening; minister, courtier or supplicant grows desperate as meeting draws to a close; Nawaz ends meeting with a polite thank you, saying nothing about what he`s decided or even if he`s decided or even just when he`ll decide; minister, courtier or supplicant leaves wondering what`s going on with the boss and what he`s supposed to do about the problem he went to the boss with.

Or a rumour spreads: Nisar`s head is on the chopping block because Nawaz has tired of him. No one is quite sure why, but the ones in the know know Nisar has fallen out of favour.

Except, nothing happens.

Neither is Nisar reassured nor do the rumours die nor does Nisar get reined in. And he`s your point man and supposed go-to guy on internal security.

And that`s just a sample of the all kinds of messed up this government has already become. So what`s going on with Nawaz? Forget the silliness about Nov 28 and Dec 12. The twin retirements of the chiefs matter, but it`s just a fig leaf. To understand why, flip the question around: what exactly could they block if Nawaz takes a policy decision? He`s got five years; they had only months, weeks and days.

Nor does the reality-is-justsinking-in, things-are-worsethan-he-had-realised explanation work five months in.

Yeah, things are bad, but if you`re prime minister a couple of weeks of high-level briefings and the contours of the problems are apparent enough. Get on with it.

It comes down to two explanations, one of which the NLeague admits resignedly, the other that it still only dare whisper.

Nawaz is isolated. He hates his party, he has no bureaucrats, his inner circle has shrunk and, for some, there`s no Abbaji around this time.

You can`t fix a country if there`s no one you really trust.

Especially if you never were the sharpest pencil in the box to begin with.

The theory makes sense to a degree. Isolation isn`t something you can`t break out of. And not everything about governance is automatically about trust or the fear of being stabbed in the back or being screwed over.

So isolation isn`t enough of a theory on its own. But then there`s the other theory.

Has Nawaz given up? Has he figured out that nothing can save Pakistan? That everything`s too broken for anything to be fixed? That all a pol can do is sit tight, hangon andhopeforthe best that somewhere down theroad, when the tumult and upheaval and brokenness resolve themselves somehow, recovery can be attempted? The theory is less that Nawaz doesn`t know what to do and more that he`s figured out nothing can be done.

Which, really, isn`t that surprising a realisation to anyone who`s been paying attention all these years. A declining state will eventually approach terminal state.

Now pair the theory of hopelessness with the theory of isolation and you`re left with a whole lot of nothing.

Which is precisely what we`re stuck with on the Nawaz front.

Which leaves the rest of us you and me, the hapless lot stuck in the rear compartment of a train to nowhere with a very simple question: can anything be done to jolt Nawaz into action? Yes. But not by us. Just by events.

The problem with events though is that they rarely provide the right incentives for the right decisions at least events of the Pakistani kind in the Pakistani milieu.

Take the economy.

Inflation, inflation, inflation. Punjab is already rumbling about it; that and electricity and the rupee. The NLeague is worried, and for obvious reasons.

But then there`s Nawaz, always talking calmly about the economy and growth and making things better, seemingly living in another economy to the one the rest of Pakistan is struggling with.

Read between the lines and Nawaz`s approach on the economy comes down to this: forget trying to fix what`s already broken, just get more electricity to the people and wait for the trade dividend with India to explode.

Essentially, Nawaz is playing the long game gambling that he`s got five years, so that gives him at least three to begin to produce results.

Which is why he didn`t back Dar to take any tough decisions during the budget andhasn`t paid any attention to the IMF commitments.

But events wait for no man, even Nawaz. And so you already have the rumbling in Punjab on inflation, on electricity, on the rupee and the N-League having no idea what to do about any of it.

Which has forced them into doing what everyone else before them has done: give whatever handouts they can to whoever they can until there`s absolutely no room for any more handouts and then everyone is even more unhappy.

Which takes us back to the twin theories of despair and isolation.

Nothing can be done because everything`s too broken to be fixed and there`s no one Nawaz can rely on with events working to further entrench those twin beliefs of Nawaz.

And therein lies the tale of the PM who went from being the leader who could to the leader who can`t in doublequick time. • The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com Twitter: @cyalm