US-Israel-Iran war: Pakistan is trying to avoid existential crisis in playing ‘peacemaker’; to call it ‘winning’ is darkly funny

It has been disappointing, though not unexpected, to watch Indian Opposition and the usual suspects go ballistic over Pakistan’s ‘mediation’ in Iran. It is also darkly funny. Those claiming “Pakistan has won and India has lost in regional diplomacy” have either no clue or are being led solely by political imperatives.

That’s not a crime. But imbuing Pakistan with far more agency than even Islamabad is reserving for itself -- faced with a war that it can ill afford to get sucked into -- with a view to punch holes in Modi government’s foreign policy reveals frustration and paucity of ideas in the Opposition space.

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Those inclined to do so, would do well to remember that Pakistan’s domestic politics may define itself in terms of India, the reverse need not be true. India aims to be a great power. Several Indian states have GDP greater than Pakistan’s total GDP in 2025. We should not sell ourselves short in drawing spurious comparisons with a failed state that has few options other than selling its strategic salience or acting as a sycophantic appendage to the American president and his cronies to get by.

It’s not just me saying it. Here’s New York Times: “It is a striking rise in station for Pakistan, which little more than a year ago was a diplomatic afterthought in Washington. But since Mr. Trump returned to office, the Pakistanis have lavished praise on the president, hired lobbyists tied to his family and even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. They also struck a series of business deals that mimicked the administration’s own transactional approach to foreign policy.”

Pakistan is used to being treated “worse than toilet paper” by the United States. If the Trump administration treats Pakistan as a glorified interlocutor to send across missives to Iran, there’s very little India can, or should do.

As the external affairs minister said at the all-party meeting, Pakistan had acted as the conduit between US and China in 1971, US and Iran in 1981 and again as the interlocutor between the US and the Taliban in 2004. “We don’t run around asking countries what kind of brokerage (dalali) we can do.”

Jaishankar’s remarks might appear blunt, but the more relevant question is, what is in our national interest?

Is it to fret around like a butler carrying envelopes between two warring sides that are taking maximalist positions? It increasingly appears that the American side is using “talks” as a smokescreen to buy time for an eventual ground invasion. Where does that place the “mediator” that has jumped into the mess with a missionary zeal? Pakistan has even offered Islamabad as the venue for direct US-Iran talks, pitching itself as the indispensable go-between. Yet if the conflict is rolling towards a ground invasion, not only may it further widen the frame of the war, but it may also end up sucking Pakistan into the vortex.

So, let me ask the question again. What serves India’s supreme national interest? Is it to shuffle letters between two mutually hostile principals and end up being a pawn in a larger game one hasn’t signed up for? Or is it to do what the Modi government has done so effectively – steadfastly pursuing its national interests?

In terms of energy security, India has managed this unprecedented crisis through a mix of diplomatic hedging, logistical planning and diversification of energy basket. New Delhi worked up the phone lines and leveraged its channels with Tehran quietly to secure assurance that India‑linked tankers would be treated as belonging to a “friendly nation” and allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz that remains closed to ‘enemy’ states.

This has been backed up by the Indian Navy’s escort and presence near the chokepoint, helping shepherd India‑bound tankers through a high‑risk zone and signalling that India will protect the flow of critical cargoes. Several India‑bound vessels have already crossed, with dozens more queued up, preserving a lifeline of crude and LPG to Indian ports.

At the same time, India’s longer‑term strategy of diversifying both crude and LPG has given it room to manoeuvre. As the Strait of Hormuz became a primary theater of war, New Delhi significantly ramped up its crude imports from Russia, with March and April 2026 volumes nearing all-time highs of approximately 60 million barrels. India also negotiated the first direct purchase of Iranian LPG and oil in nearly eight years to address a critical shortage of cooking gas. By expanding its energy basket to 41 countries, India has demonstrated its ability to source essential resources from diverse and even sanctioned regions without alienating Western partners.

India has managed to keep all petrol pumps around the country adequately stocked with 60 days of oil reserves and one month of LPG supplies. As media reports point out, India currently has a cumulative reserve capacity of 74 days of fuel stocks, including crude, petrol, and diesel. Domestic refinery production of LPG has been ramped up by 40 per cent and “800 TMT of LPG cargoes are enroute to India from the United States, Russia, Australia, and other countries.”

In between, it is remarkable statecraft to be counted among nations that Iran considers “friendly” enough to allow ships to pass, while “strongly condemning” Iran’s unprovoked attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – nations that are integral to the India story.

While Indian refineries are operating at high capacity, with inventories in place, domestic LPG production ramped up and all retails outlets operating normally, Pakistan is in dire straits. It has enforced drastic measures, including a mandatory four-day work week, emergency school closures and remote work for half of its workforce to curb fuel consumption.

Those given to reflexive criticism of Modi government’s foreign policy haven’t paused to reflect on the pyrrhic nature of Pakistan’s “mediation”. Trump’s 15-point ‘peace plan’ – that included demands of Iran dismantling its nuclear programme, relinquishing all enriched uranium, submitting to inspections, abandoning proxy networks, limiting its ballistic missile programme and ceding effective control over the Strait of Hormuz – effectively sought to impose on Iran terms that were possible only if Iran was soundly defeated.

But such onerous terms go against the very grain of the current conflict that is loaded in favour of Iran at the moment, so it isn’t surprising to note Tehran dismissing the claims as “excessive” and issuing counter-claims that weren’t going to be accepted by the US. Israel, the other party in the mix that has been happily bombing Iran, wants nothing to do with any peace overtures.

Far from “peace”, all the signs point towards Trump preparing for a risky ground invasion as the only ‘least onerous’ option left. It is clear that the Iranian regime retains significant capability to launch counter strikes even as Israel is running out of interceptors. It is also raking in hundreds of millions of dollars of extra income from oil sales, has a stranglehold on the Hormuz chokepoint which it plans to use as a future “toll booth”, and generally appears to be in a stronger position than when the war started.

This leaves Trump and Netanyahu with almost no option except to put boots on the ground in an operation that could quickly go south.

A ground invasion would be categorically different from the bombing campaign. Geography favours Iran. It has reportedly mobilized one million fighters and is laying out traps and mines on Kharg Island. Between the Iranians and US troops, the former will have more desperation and willpower. That makes a difference.

The IRGC is adept at asymmetric warfare, and has demonstrated ability to strike across the region hitting Gulf states, Israel, and Strait of Hormuz. A US ground operation would almost certainly trigger a protracted war of attrition, the kind that defies clean political outcomes and closes the window for any negotiated settlement. Pakistan’s mediation role, already tenuous, may become completely irrelevant in such a scenario.

The US treats Pakistan as a prophylactic device while calibrating engagement around its own strategic needs. When those needs change, Pakistan is left holding the consequences. We only have to look at the Afghanistan quagmire that is still bleeding Islamabad.

Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif said the quiet part out in the Parliament last month when he admitted that Washington has historically exploited Islamabad for its own strategic gains, such as during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s and the post-9/11 ‘War on Terror’, only to discard the country like a “toilet paper” once its objectives were met. Asif cited former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s past admissions as proof that Pakistan was used as a transactional “tissue paper” ally, left to deal with the economic ruin and security fallout alone while the US pivoted its interests elsewhere.

Further, it would be an analytical error to ignore Pakistan’s imperatives in attempting to play the peacemaker. The country is in the grip of a two-front panic. Pakistan is not mediating because it has the authority to broker peace. It is mediating because it is terrified of what happens if the war arrives at its door while it is already struggling to douse the Taliban fire.

The Taliban is stretching the Pakistani army on its western flank. Islamabad now watches a major regional war expanding toward its neighbourhood, oil prices climbing, Gulf states from which Pakistani workers remit around $39 billion annually becoming active war zones.

A wider war is an existential crisis for Pakistan. Iran has historically cultivated influence among Pakistan’s Baloch population and Shia communities. A widening war could spark a civil war. Asim Munir’s “peace” efforts, therefore, is a desperate attempt to freeze the conflict.

Munir’s task is even more complicated, and the urgency to place Pakistan as a “peacemaker” even more acute due to the ‘Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement’ with Saudi Arabia signed last year. Munir is terrified at the prospect of Mohammed bin Salman, who wants the US to finish off the job, dragging Pakistan by the scruff of its neck.

Pakistan is caught in a structural trap. It is certainly not ‘winning’ regional diplomacy.

(Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)