After the Israeli attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear plants and the expected Iranian response, the world is teetering on the edge of a deadly precipice. The US and Israel alone are to be blamed for this moment. A desperately needed pause to this madness must come.
Meanwhile, at a moment when much of the world has either chosen sides, calculated silence, or retreated into carefully managed ambiguity, Pakistan has attempted something far more demanding: to oppose war, stand by legality, maintain visible political support for the state under attack, and yet preserve diplomatic channels with every major actor capable of influencing the outcome.
Since the outbreak of Israeli-US military action against Iran, Islamabad has pursued a course that is neither rhetorical posturing nor passive neutrality. It has instead sought, from the first day, to push the crisis towards a just, legal and non-kinetic process while remaining engaged with all sides in what is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous confrontations the region has faced in years.
This has not been easy diplomacy. Pakistan is operating in a strategic environment where military narratives inevitably move faster than political reason. It is also a space in which every diplomatic move is immediately measured against competing regional loyalties and global alignments.
Yet Islamabad chose early to anchor its position in national interests and a principle that has long been the hallmark of its formal diplomatic language: precedents that violate sovereignty and territorial integrity cannot be set casually without weakening the larger, however imperfect, international order.
That is why Pakistan’s statements consistently invoked the language of the UN Charter, particularly the prohibition on the use of force against territorial integrity except under clearly established legal grounds. This gave Pakistan’s position clarity at a time when many states preferred caution or a delayed response. It also gave Islamabad credibility with Tehran without shutting the door to wider diplomatic engagement.
That credibility matters because Pakistan did not merely issue one statement and retreat. It remained diplomatically active, politically visible, and strategically consistent. In multilateral forums, bilateral contacts and regional consultations, Pakistan continued arguing that if force becomes the preferred instrument before legal and political avenues are exhausted, then the international system itself suffers another serious erosion.
Even those backing forces are increasingly aware that force alone may not produce the desired political outcome
But diplomacy in a war of this scale cannot be understood without acknowledging battlefield reality. The present movement towards possible talks did not emerge simply because countries urged restraint. It emerged because military developments stumped Washington and Tel Aviv; their strategic calculations stand altered. The debate within Washington and in European capitals clearly establishes this.
The United States remains fully aligned with Israel and has shown little hesitation in sustaining that support politically, militarily and diplomatically. Yet it is equally clear that Washington is now confronting the widening costs of prolonged escalation. Iran has demonstrated that it retains retaliatory capacity, strategic patience, and the ability to impose continuing pressure across multiple levels—even when absorbing direct military attack. Every Israeli-US attack paradoxically shifts military initiative to Iran.
Ground war is changing political arithmetic.
As the world’s most technologically advanced army blunders, perhaps US commanders may recall Henry Kissinger’s 2011 essay Survival, in which he emphasised that military actions and successes—particularly when pursued without clear political objectives—lead to “imperial overstretch” and generate strategic blunders rather than successes.
That is where the US finds itself now. Washington must understand that prolonged conflict risks spreading beyond immediate military objectives into a combustible economic scene—Gulf shipping lanes, energy prices, proxy theatres spreading from Lebanon to Iraq, alliance anxieties, and domestic political debate.
This is precisely where Pakistan appears to have understood the contradiction early: that while Washington publicly sustains kinetic pressure, it also requires eventual diplomatic exits if battlefield costs deepen further.
That contradiction is visible in the ongoing debate within Washington—support for continued pressure alongside cautious signalling that channels of engagement must remain open. In other words, even those backing forces are increasingly aware that force alone may not produce the desired political outcome.
That is where Pakistan’s relevance acquires unusual weight.
Few countries today can maintain meaningful communication simultaneously with Tehran, Riyadh, Ankara, Gulf capitals, Beijing and Washington without immediate distrust from one side or another. Pakistan still can.
Its relationship with Iran remains strategically important despite periodic border tensions and historical mistrust. Its ties with Saudi Arabia remain deep, institutional and politically sensitive, shaped by decades of strategic understanding. Its military credibility in Gulf capitals remains intact. Its communication channels with Washington, though often tested, remain functional and serious.
This gives Islamabad a diplomatic reach few others presently possess.
In an international environment increasingly dominated by force, Pakistan’s insistence on law, restraint and dialogue is not weakness
And this matters because the crisis is no longer confined to one military exchange. The wider regional requirement now is to prevent the reopening of deeper strategic fractures between Iran and Arab states. The 2023 Saudi-Iran normalisation brokered by China lowered one major fault line, but it did not eliminate accumulated mistrust. A prolonged war risks reviving exactly those divisions the region had only just begun to contain.
Pakistan, therefore, is not merely trying to mediate one conflict. It is trying, quietly but seriously, to prevent a wider regional breakdown whose consequences would reach far beyond the immediate battlefield.
Its urgency is rooted in hard geography and harder economics. Nearly one-fifth of globally traded oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz. Any prolonged confrontation involving Iran immediately threatens energy security, shipping insurance, freight costs and commodity prices far beyond the Middle East.
For Pakistan, this is an immediate strategic concern, not distant analysis. Higher oil prices quickly translate into domestic inflation, fiscal strain and political pressure. Regional instability also multiplies security risks across adjoining theatres—from maritime insecurity to revived proxy activity.
This is why Islamabad’s diplomacy today reflects not merely principle but necessity.
There is also a deeper historical instinct behind this role. Pakistan’s foreign policy record—despite major failures, especially in Afghanistan—contains repeated moments where it acted as a facilitator when formal channels elsewhere were blocked. Among the earliest is the 1971 initiative. Islamabad quietly enabled the secret diplomacy that opened the path between Richard Nixon and China. In later decades, too, Pakistan repeatedly served as a difficult but available diplomatic bridge when larger powers required indirect contact.
That institutional memory remains visible today.
Pakistan has also maintained symbolic consistency towards Iran in ways that matter diplomatically. It did not dilute the condemnation of attacks on Iranian territory. It publicly underscored the dangers of targeting senior Iranian leadership. It retained language of solidarity without crossing into inflammatory rhetoric that would destroy diplomatic space.
That balance is difficult—but essential. Credibility in crisis diplomacy depends precisely on whether a state can stand by principle without losing the ability to speak to all sides.
Still, no serious observer should assume success is near.
This remains one of the most treacherous diplomatic terrains Pakistan has entered in recent years. Military calculations still dominate timing. Washington continues to send mixed signals. Iran is understandably unwilling to grant easy diplomatic concessions while under direct pressure. And every fresh strike risks overtaking political efforts already under strain.
Pakistan, therefore, is not operating on guaranteed ground. It is working in a space where even temporary diplomatic openings can close within hours.
Yet that does not diminish the importance of the effort.
Diplomacy is often judged unfairly only by immediate outcomes. In reality, its first achievement is often simply preventing total collapse. That may be Pakistan’s most important contribution at this stage: keeping alive channels that war itself seeks to shut. Diplomacy averts catastrophe—one that the original US-Israeli aggression seems to be leading the world towards.
Today, Pakistan occupies a rare strategic space: trusted enough to engage multiple rivals, cautious enough to avoid grandstanding, and sufficiently aware that if this war expands, no state in the region will remain untouched.
Whether this effort succeeds remains uncertain. But in an international environment increasingly dominated by force, Pakistan’s insistence on law, restraint and dialogue is not weakness.
It is a strategic necessity—and perhaps the only serious path still available.
The Sunday moot is only step one of a more complex and hopeful diplomatic process Pakistan has initiated—and it is seeking Iran’s engagement. Obviously.