ISLAMABAD:
For months, Pakistan found itself in an unfamiliar but influential role: that of one of the main mediators between Iran and the United States at a time when the two adversaries appeared dangerously close to a broader regional war.
Today, however, that diplomatic momentum has all but evaporated.
The resumption of exchanges of military strikes between Washington and Tehran has rendered the Islamabad memorandum of understanding, once hailed as the framework that could bring the two sides back to diplomacy, virtually useless.
With missiles once again crossing the Gulf and no indication that either side is ready to resume negotiations, Pakistan appears to have deliberately backed away, adopting what is described as a “wait and see” approach.
The latest escalation is precisely the scenario Islamabad hoped to avoid. Pakistan did not expect the MoU to produce a breakthrough overnight.
Officials involved in the mediation understood that decades of mistrust between Iran and the United States could not be erased by a single agreement or a handful of meetings. The expectation was more modest: to create enough political space for sustained dialogue and to prevent a military confrontation from spiraling out of control.
On the contrary, the opposite happened. The resumption of hostilities is believed to have left Islamabad deeply disappointed.
The feeling within Pakistan’s foreign policy establishment is that months of painstaking diplomacy have effectively been undone in a matter of days.
Previously, whenever tensions erupted after the signing of the Islamabad MoU, Pakistan and Qatar acted quickly to contain the situation.
Following negotiations with Switzerland, for example, Iran and the United States carried out limited retaliatory strikes. These incidents threatened to derail the diplomatic process, but the coordinated intervention by Islamabad and Doha succeeded in persuading both sides to restore the ceasefire. This ultimately paved the way for another round of indirect negotiations in Doha.
These discussions concluded with the agreement that negotiations at the technical level would resume after the funeral of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But even before the funeral ceremonies were over, the fragile calm collapsed. Iran has launched missile attacks on ships attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz without what Tehran has described as its authorization. The United States responded militarily, triggering a new cycle of retaliation that continues to intensify.
Since then, there has been no indication that either side is seeking to slow the escalation. Instead, military exchanges have become more frequent while official rhetoric in Washington and Tehran has hardened considerably.
It is in this context that Pakistan’s relative silence has become increasingly noticeable. Unlike previous phases of escalation, Islamabad has refrained from publicly positioning itself at the center of mediation efforts. Although senior Pakistani officials have remained in contact with Iran and other regional actors, the proactive diplomacy that characterized Pakistan’s earlier role has largely disappeared.
Observers say the shift reflects growing frustration rather than disengagement. Pakistan believes it has invested significant diplomatic capital to create the conditions for dialogue. The collapse of this process, despite repeated efforts to preserve it, has convinced policymakers that neither Washington nor Tehran is currently prepared to prioritize diplomacy.
The prevailing view in Islamabad is that while both capitals remain convinced that military pressure can produce strategic gains, external mediation is unlikely to succeed.
As one diplomat from a key regional country said privately, both sides appear determined to test whether force can achieve what negotiations could not.
Only after concluding that military action cannot provide a lasting solution, the diplomat believes, will meaningful diplomacy become possible again.
Until then, Pakistan sees no point in repeatedly intervening and seeing fragile agreements collapse after each new exchange of fire.
This is not to say that Islamabad has completely abandoned its role as mediator. The visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Doha, officially to offer his condolences following the death of the former emir of Qatar, inevitably fueled speculation about possible diplomatic contacts.
Qatar, alongside Pakistan, remains one of the few countries to maintain communication channels with both Tehran and Washington.
Yet here we have the impression that the conditions are not conducive to another mediation initiative. According to them, diplomacy can only succeed if both sides first demonstrate a genuine desire to end military operations.
For now, Pakistan seems content to stay on the sidelines.
The calculation is that diplomacy cannot be imposed on adversaries who continue to believe that battlefield successes will strengthen their negotiating positions.
Islamabad therefore awaits the inevitable moment when Washington and Tehran conclude that military escalation has reached its limits.
When that time arrives, Islamabad will once again be ready to offer its good offices. In the meantime, the mediator has chosen patience over activism.
