Analysis says army chief’s backdoor diplomacy has left Modi on the sidelines as Pakistan brokers US-Iran communication
Prime Minister Shehbaz, Field Marshal Munir and US President Donald Trump at the White House Photo: PMO X account
When Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar recently called Pakistan a middleman for its role as a messenger between the United States and Iran, the insult betrayed a deep sense of marginalization – and was, in a sense, an unintentional acknowledgment of reality.
An analysis published in Foreign policy The magazine argued that in the eyes of US President Donald Trump, being a fixer is not a mark of shame but a badge of usefulness.
Trump found in Defense Force Chief and Army Chief of Staff Asim Munir “exactly the kind of interlocutor he likes – a powerful operator with direct access to the White House and willing to sell himself as useful.”
According to the article, this “left Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an awkward position, relegated to receiving a single phone call from Trump about the Middle East crisis” – with Elon Musk listening in.
Read: Pakistan emerges where India could not
Pakistan, meanwhile, is anything but inactive. Islamabad presented itself as a neutral mediator between Washington and Tehran, holding talks with Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia on March 29, where the four countries formed a committee to support a ceasefire and reached a deal with Iran to allow Pakistani ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar then rushed to Beijing for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, after which the two countries released a five-part peace plan. Given the lack of concrete results so far, Foreign policy notes that Pakistan “presents this nascent process as a practical step aimed at expanding the channel of communication between the two sides.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Munir “maintained direct and separate channels to relay sensitive messages between Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, while communicating with other world leaders.”
The article draws a parallel with a pivotal moment in history: “Pakistan’s role as a bridge between the United States and Iran reflects its facilitation of the United States’ opening to China in 1971,” when Islamabad exploited its geography, military channels and brokerage status to help secure Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing – a move that changed the course of Cold War geopolitics.
This “multi-directional diplomacy,” the article asserts, suggests that Islamabad is attempting to reclaim that role, with the destination today not China but a rapprochement between the United States and Iran.
He adds that the recent flurry of activity has “elevated Pakistan from the status of a so-called basket country to a state recognized for its efforts to secure regional peace” – a change after years of Islamabad being sidelined by previous US presidents.
Pakistan has not only deepened ties with China, but also formalized a new strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia, while finding common ground with Iran on the fight against Baloch separatists.
The catalyst for this change, Foreign policy ” supports the brief military conflict between Pakistan and India in May 2025, saying: “Islamabad managed to turn the crisis into leverage by allowing Trump to claim credit for a ceasefire and nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize,” while a sullen Modi insisted that the ceasefire decision was strictly his.
This exchange, he says, “marked the beginning of a broader strategic reversal in which Pakistan stopped looking isolated and India started looking exposed.”
Learn more: Iran war chaos slows negotiations, Pakistan warns
The consequences for India have since worsened. At the start of the Iran war, Modi chose to support Israel – and by extension the United States – preventing New Delhi from playing a credible arbiter role. India has since been reduced to asking Tehran by telephone to allow ships carrying cooking gas to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, while Pakistan is treated as a credible conduit into the very region where India once hoped to increase its stakes.
“Pakistan has surpassed India in creating diplomatic relevance despite its own internal problems and risks of failure as an interlocutor, starting with overpromising and underdelivering,” he says. This moment, he adds, “underscores New Delhi’s poor position in its extended neighborhood”, while “India remains wedded to the national political narrative of aspiration for global leadership, it is bypassed in the real corridors of power”.
The emergence of a middle power bloc – Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – bringing together “three of the largest militaries, nuclear weapons and financial power in the Middle East”, represents a further challenge for Indian interests. For India, which has always favored bilateral commitments, Foreign policy warns, “the rise of such a group worryingly suggests a future in which actors not aligned with New Delhi’s vision shape the regional order.”
These challenges also reveal a harsher truth about the U.S.-India relationship, which they say “has always been more about shared concerns about China than shared values or deep-rooted trust.” If army chief Munir manages to strike a deal with Iran or provide a stable platform for US interests in South Asia, Trump will not hesitate to reward him at Modi’s expense, it is claimed.
Yet the article is equally frank about the risks Pakistan poses. His mediation is “built on shaky foundations” and his “diplomatic rise is disproportionately linked to one man and a White House that rewards theater and tactical utility.”
“Pakistan is not embraced because its institutions are strong or its economy is resilient; it is simply available,” he adds. Its economy remains fragile, “its military power still dominates foreign policy in a way that limits the ability of civilian officials to negotiate quickly, and its political system is barely stable enough to support a long-term strategic pivot.”
Any role as mediator between hostile powers, Foreign policy ” warns, exposes Pakistan to “retaliation, suspicion and the possibility of being blamed by one side for the failure of negotiations or by the other for extracting too many miles from access.” The talks will have to be indirect, with Pakistani officials shuttling between delegations.
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“The very position that creates visibility will also make Pakistan the bearer of bad news if negotiations fail – and this remains a real possibility,” the analysis reads. In the court of a transactional leader like Trump, he warns, “the distance between a favored intermediary and an abandoned asset is remarkably short.”
Internal vulnerabilities, however, “do not diminish the fact that Pakistan managed to break the diplomatic quarantine that Modi worked so hard to impose.”
For more than a decade, Modi’s strategy has been simple: globalize India’s economy, deepen partnerships with the West, and dominate the narrative of a responsible rising power, so that “Pakistan is relegated to the margins.” The current situation, the article says, shows how foreign policy has prioritized domestic narratives over the harsh realities of international power dynamics.
“The real embarrassment for India is not that Pakistan has become more active. It is that [Army Chief] Munir is welcomed in capitals where Modi once expected to be consulted, even postponed,” Foreign policy states. Modi, he adds, “must come to an uncomfortable realization: Pakistan is still here, still annoying, still unstable, and yet also suddenly no longer useful to the powers that matter right now.”
“India cannot afford to ignore this jolt at a time of great geopolitical change,” he concludes – and for Modi, this should be a wake-up call to rethink the fundamentals of his foreign policy, not an excuse for his minister to resort to derogatory remarks against Pakistan.
