Against all odds, Pakistan pushes for peace

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi's post on X has slammed into Pakistan's critics like a Shahed drone. And thank God for that. He wrote on Saturday "Iran's position is being misrepresented by U.S. media. We are deeply grateful to Pakistan for its efforts and have never refused to go to Islamabad. What we care about are the terms of a conclusive and lasting END to the illegal war that is imposed on us. Pakistan Zindabad." Our Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar replied to Aragchi: "Truly appreciate your clarification, my Dear Brother." The need for stating this officially cropped up because The Wall Street Journal ran a story quoting unnamed sources that Iran had decided not to take part in negotiations in Pakistan. Reuters news agency ran a report based on the WSJ story and many publications, including Pakistani ones, published it. Since then, a surge of sentiments against Pakistan flooded our social media timelines. Nauseating I-told-you-so's began spreading like toxic fume through various platforms and accounts. Turns out, unnamed sources were wrong. The diplomatic process is still alive and Pakistan is still very much in the centre of it. Which brings me to my main point today. Pakistan may be faulted for many things, but today – here and now – diplomacy is not one of them. Allow me to explain. Conventional wisdom says a country's diplomatic strength has a direct correlation to its economic prowess. By this definition, Pakistan is punching beyond its weight. Decades of economic misgovernance, elite capture of policy, and shocking neglect of essential reform – combined, these sins of Pakistani leaders have brought this nuclear-armed nation of 250 million people to a level where it is dependent on others for its financial solvency. This is a crime against the citizens of Pakistan. We are reminded of this crime every time the government hits us with hikes in price of essentials like petrol and electricity. It is a crime that successive governments – civil and military – have failed spectacularly to reform the rotten taxation system. Today we pay for their sins. It is a crime how the power and energy sector has been ravaged by atrocious policies since the 1990s, and how vested interests, instead of public interest, have driven decision-making. Today we pay for these sins. Our governments remain bloated, inefficient and lacking in moral as well as political courage to undertake radical reform. The system is more rotten from the inside than it appears from the outside. There is nothing to suggest, sadly, that anything is about to change in any meaningful way. And yet, Pakistan in the last two weeks, has emerged as the centre of global attention. The yelping and bleating from across our eastern border are validation of this fact, not that such validation was needed from clowns sitting in Indian TV studios. Reasons have been analysed to death: Pakistan's solid ties with Washington, Tehran, Riyadh, and its advantage of being Iran's only neighbour with no US bases and plenty of stakes in a peaceful resolution of war. Agreed. But all this did not happen overnight. The game changer, all agree, was the May 2025 hammering we imparted to the pompous Indians. But it was what followed that glorious thrashing that defied the norms of conventional wisdom that I mentioned earlier. We leveraged our victory instead of sitting on its laurels. We built relationships, signed pacts and traipsed across continents to shake hands, pat backs and forge ties. As a nuclear-armed country with a population of 250 million people, we have always punched below our weight. This is the crime the Pakistani leaders have committed against the Pakistani nation since forever and forever. But then suddenly, things changed. The hubris-laden Modi government blundered into an unprovoked act of aggression, got itself royally humiliated, and gifted us an opportunity to redefine our image on the geopolitical landscape. When Pakistan's name came up from nowhere as a possible facilitator of talks between the US and Iran, it did not, in fact, come up from nowhere. Critics at home and abroad bemoaned that Pakistan may fall into a trap; that the US might use the talks ruse to launch fresh attacks on Iran; and that in the end Pakistan may get sucked into the conflict because of our defence pact with Saudi Arabia. Yada Yada Yada… The fact is that Pakistan's diplomacy has found a sweet spot at a moment of great uncertainty and change. Regional and global dynamics are transforming in front of our eyes. No one knows how the US-Israel war on Iran will end, but everyone knows that our neighbourhood will never be the same again. Will traditional relationships come under strain? Of course. Will new opportunities emerge? For sure. Will Pakistan have a bigger say in what goes around in this region? Absolutely. Are there any downsides to the mediatory initiative we have taken? Net, net – no. The prospects of Iran being vanquished completely are dimming by the day. The prospects of the US and Israel emerging chastened after the war are increasing by the day. Our worst nightmare – a snarling, sneering rogue nation like Israel lording over a cowering and broken Iran, and glowering at us from our western border. That nightmare ain't gonna happen. So, we are placed well to manoeuvre across the emerging landscape. More importantly, we will be better placed – militarily and diplomatically – to deal with terror outfits in Afghanistan. And with India. The Indian front is still festering like a wound. It requires proper treatment. The lessons, experiences and advantages gained from our West Asian experience will serve us well to sort out our petulant eastern neighbour. If even now our leaders cannot undertake radical reform – starting with reforming government and governance – and strengthen our economy to match our military and diplomatic strength, then we should really start running of forgiveness.