The Nine Lives of Pakistan (Dispatches from a Precarious State)

Review by Jon P. Dorschner

The Nine Lives of Pakistan (Dispatches from a Precarious State) by Declan Walsh, W. W.
Norton & Company: New York, 2020, ISBN 978-03-9324-991-0, 357 pp., $30 (Hardcover),
$9.18 (Kindle).

Declan Walsh, a professional journalist, set up shop in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan in
2004, as the country correspondent for The Guardian. In 2012 he switched over to the New York
Times, and was expelled from Pakistan by the government in 2013. In his introduction Walsh
describes the expulsion in detail. During the process, the intelligence officers from Inter-
Services Intelligence (ISI) never provided a reason for this drastic move. Afterwards, his
repeated entreaties to the Pakistan government left the question unanswered. In the book’s final
pages, he meets up with an unnamed ISI officer in an unnamed European city. This man with a
conscience, who could no longer carry out the dictates of his agency and has resigned, provides
Walsh with some closure, but, like so much regarding Pakistan, the real story remains unclear.

Although Walsh and I did not serve in Pakistan in the same time period, his Pakistan experiences
overlapped with my own in many ways. I was assigned to the US Embassy in Islamabad from
1985-1987 and 1995-1997. Like him, I travelled the length and breadth of the country
interacting intensely with the Pakistani people, and “teasing out its nuances and arguing with
those who chose to view its problems in stark black-and-white (page xix).” For me, the book
kindled old and intense memories, and provided an update on what has transpired since my
departure. Walsh’s descriptions were so vivid and accurate, that I was transported instantly to
many of my old haunts.

Walsh used a creative format to interweave his own story with that of Pakistan. He repeats the
oft-heard truism that Pakistan is a country living on borrowed time, “a country of sighs and
regrets, the only one I had been in where some of its own citizens quietly regretted it had ever
come into being. (page 20).” Just as a cat is perceived to have “nine lives,” escaping from one
situation after another, Pakistan continues to plug along, avoiding its oft-predicted demise. As a
result the Pakistani mindset is characterized by a prevailing fatalism, encapsulated by the phrase
Insha’ Allah (if Allah wills it), which Pakistanis routinely apply to any and all situations. Both
Walsh and I heard this phrase everywhere we went.

Unlike others writing about Pakistan, Walsh does not present seas of facts and data, capped off
with analysis of the country’s survival chances. Instead, he presents Pakistan by looking at the
lives (and deaths) of nine colorful, yet representative Pakistanis, including a “reluctant” Islamic
fundamentalist, Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pashtun and Baloch tribal leaders, a
human rights activist, a provincial governor, two officers of Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), and a Karachi cop who specialized in “encounter killings.”

While initially the concept could appear contrived, it works beautifully. The book is far more
than a series of biographical vignettes. The sketches are merely the pegs he uses to anchor the
narrative. Over the course of the life stories of these colorful Pakistanis, Walsh manages to
provide a systematic examination of the many dramatic events that unfolded during his nine-year
tenure. This enables him to tell a complex story about a country that many of his readers know
little or nothing about, in a fascinating way. Unlike other authors, Walsh does not present his
own opinion as to where Pakistan is headed and how it will end. Like the professional journalist
he is, Walsh allows the reader to come to his/her own conclusions.

I am a South Asia specialist by profession and have therefore ploughed my way through many
boring books written in a dry and lifeless style that cover the same issues. Like any professional,
I do not complain, seeing this as a professional duty. This does not mean, however, that I expect
general readers to do likewise. This book is an attractive alternative, as it covers much of the
same ground in an exuberant and lively way. The reader is drawn into the stories and wants to
see what happens. This makes this in many ways the ideal book for a reader with little or no
exposure to Pakistan, who nevertheless wants to read one inclusive book that provides an
accurate rendering of the fundamentals. The reader is immersed in a series of colorful stories
that encapsulate the contradictory facets of Pakistan. Upon completion, such a reader will
possess a strong grasp of the basic facts and will feel conversant with events covered only
marginally in American media. The book enables such a reader to comprehend the
contemporary Pakistani state and its challenges. Even though I have read hundreds of books
about Pakistan, Walsh provided me with insights and details I had never knew about.

Walsh points out that the popular picture in the West is that Pakistan is a drab and boring place,
filled with dour religious fanatics and closed minds. While such persons exist in Pakistan and
are favorite topics in Western media accounts, they are the exception rather than the rule. Walsh
urges his readers to understand Pakistan with subtlety rather than painting it with a broad brush
and over-generalizations. Walsh falls in loves with Pakistan not only because of its history and
beautiful scenery, but because he finds the people to be warm, hospitable, and fun-loving. He
forges close bonds, makes lifelong friends, and is constantly amazed. When compelled to depart,
he feels genuinely heartbroken to leave his Pakistani life behind.

Walsh is an Irish citizen and thoroughly European and shares the disdain many Europeans
express for US foreign policy, especially in the South Asian region. He makes it clear that in his
view, the Americans are often their own worst enemies, devising ad hoc agendas with
insufficient foresight and wisdom that leave the region worse off. One sees Walsh interacting
with American diplomats from Washington and the Islamabad Embassy throughout the book.
He presents a jaded picture. He confirms that Pakistanis are themselves fascinated with the
American diplomats constantly featured in Pakistani media, with Pakistanis convinced that
everyone in the US Embassy is a mover and shaker with great influence. As a result, Pakistani
elites vie with each other to rub shoulders with American Foreign Service Officers. Walsh’s
view is far more nuanced than that of his Pakistani friends and confidants. He, in some ways,
feels sorry for these diplomats, and their need to constantly carry out and defend unpopular and
contradictory policies.

I was surprised to see that while Walsh decries the oft-cited conspiratorial thinking of Pakistanis,
he also buys into it. In Pakistan it is common to manufacture and believe in elaborate
conspiracies to explain events with logical explanations. For example, Pakistanis have spun
elaborate tales regarding the alleged “assassination” of Pakistan’s leader General Zia ul Haq in a
1988 airplane crash. Few Pakistanis seem willing to accept that the plane crashed due to the
failure of the Pakistani military to perform required maintenance, instead accepting stories of
exploding mangos and machinations by differing intelligence agencies and shadowy insurgents.
While not giving credence to all the conspiracy theories, Walsh seems to buy into them. He
provides the same treatment to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. As Walsh points out, this
mindset is partially the result of the dominant role played by ISI in Pakistani history. With ISI
seemingly all-pervasive in Pakistan and linked to all manner of secretive plots and double-
dealing, it is easy for Pakistanis to see elusive plots everywhere.

Sadly, I must warn the reader to be aware that there are typos and missing words in several
locations in the book and that in some cases, these render sentences difficult to understand if not
unintelligible. I find it difficult to understand how these glaring errors were able to pass into the
final version of the book undetected.

American Diplomacy is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely
granted with credit and a link back to American Diplomacy.