Trump’s Iran war casts doubt on Pakistan’s regional diplomacy
By Marcus Andreopoulos
As war rips across the map of the Middle East amid fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the violence and unrest are casting doubt on the durability of the recent Saudi-Pakistan Mutual Defence Agreement. A little more than six months since that treaty was signed, both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have faced military retaliation from longtime regional adversaries. Neither Riyadh nor Islamabad appears prepared to come to the other’s aid.
For Islamabad, the recent conflict with Afghanistan threatens to undermine Pakistan’s credibility as a reliable defense partner for Middle Eastern countries and further chips away at international perceptions of its military establishment. In response to its waning global influence, Pakistan has positioned itself as an intermediary for the United States and Iran. Islamabad successfully brokered a two-week ceasefire between the Trump administration and Tehran, though proved unable to facilitate a meaningful agreement between the warring parties. History has shown, in any case, that Washington should exercise caution when it comes to Pakistani mediation.
Signed last September, the Saudi-Pakistani pact had intended to serve as a form of deterrence against future conflict. At the time, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stated that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both,” although it is now clear that neither Sharif nor his counterpart Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had any intention for this commitment to be tested so soon after. With this in mind, the Trump administration’s decision to launch “Operation Epic Fury” came at an unfortunate moment. Pakistan had only just declared the start of its own “open war” against neighboring Afghanistan one day earlier. This followed a week of clashes along the pair’s shared border in what was the latest escalation of years of tensions over cross-border fighting.
Any hope that Saudi Arabia would step in following Afghan Taliban operations against Pakistani military positions quickly dissolved as Riyadh found itself drawn into a crisis of its own within hours. As the odds of a lasting resolution to the Middle East fighting appear slim, the chances of Saudi Arabia diverting its attention and resources away from the region so as to come to the aid of its new treaty partner have become increasingly improbable. As far as Islamabad is concerned, its military alliance with Saudi Arabia will not yield any tangible support for its struggle against the Taliban.
Saudi support or not, Pakistan had nonetheless sought to invoke the bilateral pact to publicly warn Iran against continuing its attacks on Saudi Arabia. In early March, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar cited the agreement in conversation with Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi. In reality, Dar’s remarks were little more than diplomatic posturing and should not have been interpreted as an indication of Pakistan’s willingness to pursue military action against Iran. Even if Tehran had disregarded Islamabad’s meek warning, there was little to no prospect of the Pakistani military intervening meaningfully in the Middle East, owing to the military and political implications of doing so.
As it turned out, Pakistan could ill afford to follow through with such threats and become embroiled in a war in the Middle East at the same time as its conflict with the Taliban remained unresolved. After all, though Pakistan was not a target of Iran’s recent wave of strikes, it is worth remembering that the two countries traded missile strikes at the start of 2024. Taking any offensive action against Iran would have therefore opened a second front for Pakistan, which would have been left confronting threats along both of its western borders. At the same time, taking any such action to prolong the conflict would not be in Pakistan’s interests either. The country’s economy depends in large part on remittances from its diaspora working in the Gulf region as well as being especially vulnerable to further disruptions in the global oil market. The result of this has been that for Saudi Arabia, as for Pakistan, the mutual defense agreement has failed to effectively deter either country’s adversaries from launching attacks against them. Meanwhile, the timing of both wars with Iran and Afghanistan have meant that neither signatory has been able to come to the aid of the other once these conflicts began.
Trump’s war against Iran has not just exposed the practical military weaknesses of the Saudi-Pakistan pact, but it has also underscored the fundamental differences in political objectives between the two countries. Since Hamas-led fighters launched its attack on Oct. 7, 2023 and Israel began its war in Gaza, Islamabad has sought to lend its diplomatic support to Tehran while attempting to avoid antagonizing Saudi Arabia or open itself up to condemnation from the US. Equally, it has embarked on a charm offensive with the Trump administration, nominating the president for the Nobel Peace Prize on two separate occasions, and acting as a founding member of the so-called “Board of Peace.” Pakistan had been able to sustain this seemingly contradictory foreign policy without objection — until now.
Despite Sharif’s desire to remain in Trump’s good books, there were clear political restrictions on Pakistan coming out enthusiastically in support of Washington’s actions in the Middle East. After US military strikes killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of war, hundreds of Pakistanis mobilized outside of the US consulate in Karachi. The protest turned violent as demonstrators attempted to storm the compound. In response, police fired into the crowds. The event fell shy of instigating an international incident, although it unquestionably emphasized the unpopularity of the US and Israel’s actions in the Middle East. Unsurprisingly, this response put Pakistan in a bind, making it significantly more difficult for the government to condemn Iran’s attacks against its treaty partner and other allies in the Middle East.
Facing this grim reality, Pakistan has tried to position itself as a mediator in the conflict. The defense pact with Saudi Arabia may collapse when confronted with its first hurdle, but the Pakistani government is determined to regain much-needed credibility. Brokering peace talks between Washington and Tehran may have helped it do so in the short term, though it is unclear how long this image boost will last in the absence of a lasting US-Iran agreement.
Toward the end of March, Sharif held discussions with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The real source of power in Pakistan — army chief Asim Munir — meanwhile spoke with Trump over the phone. These coordinated and almost simultaneous talks were part of a succession of attempts made by the Pakistani leadership to play a critical role in facilitating a ceasefire, which included an early proposal to host potential negotiations involving US Vice President JD Vance in Pakistan.
Pakistan also hosted a summit with the Saudi, Egyptian, and Qatari foreign ministers that was ambitious in scope but achieved little in practice, with the meeting ending sooner than expected and without a joint statement.
Building on this, on April 7, Sharif took to X to appeal to President Trump and to Iran, publicly requesting a two-week extension to the ceasefire deadline as part of a last-minute effort to keep fragile diplomacy alive. Sharif’s initiative was widely framed as a unilateral Pakistani initiative, however subsequent reporting has suggested that the White House had already seen and effectively signed off on the wording before it was posted. This weakens Pakistan’s claims of playing mediator, instead implying that Sharif was functioning more as a conduit for the US, intended to create a face-saving diplomatic offramp.
Despite the temporary ceasefire, it was always unlikely that Pakistan was the most appropriate fit to mediate a lasting peace for the deadly conflict between Iran, on the one hand, and Israel and the United States, on the other. On top of its ineffectiveness, the mere existence of the Saudi-Pakistan defense pact cast doubt on Islamabad’s impartiality. For one, Saudi Arabia had reportedly urged the US to increase its attacks on Iran rather than scale back.
This diplomatic balancing act was further complicated by political signaling from within Pakistan itself. Shortly before the Islamabad talks commenced, Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s defense minister, called Israel a “cancerous state” on X, before swiftly deleting the comment. Such outbursts could only stand to hinder peace talks, particularly when the American delegation to Pakistan included figures such as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, both of whom are closely associated with Saudi-aligned regional diplomacy, especially the Abraham Accords.
But it isn’t just an issue of impartiality. Pakistan’s war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, in fact, suggests it may be in bad need of mediation itself. That conflict has further destabilized the region and drawn the ire of China, which hosted trilateral negotiations aimed at resolving the conflict earlier in early April. It seems advisable that Pakistan should focus on securing its own peace before projecting itself as an arbiter of it on the international stage. These issues call into question Pakistan’s credentials as an effective peacemaker. Worse yet, Pakistan’s own actions during its war with the Taliban include allegations that it committed a war crime by bombing a medical facility in Afghanistan.
While Islamabad’s role in brokering a temporary ceasefire may have resulted in greater global attention in the short term, any optimism quickly faded once Vance announced that no agreement had been reached. Getting both parties to the negotiating table was one thing, but the real test lay in Pakistan’s ability to facilitate a lasting agreement for peace in the Middle East. An objective that the Islamabad talks ultimately failed to achieve.
The collapse of this initiative, though, should not have come as a surprise. Pakistan did not possess the leverage or diplomatic prowess to navigate the deeply contested and disputed set of issues that dominated the Islamabad meeting, from access to the Strait of Hormuz and Israel’s ongoing war in Lebanon, to Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions relief, and compensation. Equally, in the back of its mind, Islamabad had to consider the implications of any agreement, particularly any concessions made to Iran, against its own relationship with Saudi Arabia. After all, Riyadh has already expressed deep concern over Tehran’s effective control of the Strait of Hormuz and reported imposition of passage fees.
What happens in the Middle East now remains uncertain. One thing is for sure: The Saudi-Pakistan defense pact requires a fundamental rethink if it is to regain its credibility as an effective deterrent. When it was signed last September, the treaty attracted significant enthusiasm. But there is still no indication either Islamabad or Riyadh will come to the backing of the other, leaving the agreement largely devoid of any substance. Whether the pact will even survive the latest hostilities in the Middle East and South Asia seems doubtful. What good is a pact, after all, if it cannot deter conflict and ensure military support from its signatories?
Marcus Andreopoulos is a Senior Research Fellow at the international policy assessment group, the Asia-Pacific Foundation, and a Subject Matter Expert with the Global Threats Advisory Group at NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme. Marcus is currently pursuing a PhD in international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
