PAKISTAN`S EMERGING ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST / PROJECT SYNDICATE

Pakistan’s Emerging Role in the Middle East

It’s one of the few countries that has acceptable relations with the U.S. and Iran.

By: Kamran Bokhari

One of the more overlooked consequences of the Iran war is the emergence of Pakistan as a third-party intermediary between Washington and Tehran. 

Iran doesn’t have too many allies to lobby on its behalf, and Islamabad is uniquely positioned to work with both sides. 

Regardless of the immediate outcome of U.S.-Iran talks, Pakistan is set to become one of three arbiters of Middle Eastern security (Turkey and Saudi Arabia are the other two), but its ability to sustain this role will be constrained by domestic instability and its own strategic environment. 

In an April 15 interview with Fox Business, U.S. President Donald Trump said he viewed the war with Iran as “very close to over.” 

The same day, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif left for a four-day diplomatic tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. 

Separately, Pakistan’s army chief arrived in Tehran as part of the country’s ongoing mediation effort. 

A day earlier, Trump told the New York Post that a second round of U.S.-Iran talks would take place in Pakistan’s capital.

Given the chronic political and economic fragilities that have long beset Pakistan – to say nothing of the past generation of uneven relations with the United States – it’s notable that Islamabad has emerged as a mediator. 

This development reflects deeper structural dynamics, including Iran’s growing strategic isolation, which has elevated the value of the few states able to maintain functional ties with both sides. 

Among Iran’s neighbors, Pakistan has a comparatively low-friction relationship, free of the rivalries that constrain others. 

This is especially so after the Omani channel that had previously facilitated diplomacy broke down.

From Tehran’s perspective, having so few diplomatic options left it with little choice but to engage Pakistan, despite the fact that Islamabad also maintains ties with Iran’s principal rivals, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. 

This underscores the severity of Iran’s strategic constraints. 

Pakistan’s simultaneous access to both Washington and Beijing gave it the credibility that few other states could match. 

Taken together, these factors made engagement with Islamabad a pragmatic necessity for Tehran, enabling Pakistan to convince Iran to compromise from a position of unique leverage.

From Pakistan’s perspective, the war in Iran is a major threat to national security. 

Islamabad’s entire western flank – the areas west of the Indus River – has recently been destabilized by two parallel insurgencies. 

Pakistan has been battling Taliban rebels in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and an ethno-nationalist insurgency in the southwestern Baluchistan province. 

Making matters worse is the return of the Afghan Taliban, which has aided the Pakistani Taliban, while the country serves as a permissive or weakly governed environment for Baluch insurgents. 

This is why Pakistan has been forced to fight its erstwhile Afghan proxy.

Pakistan’s Baluch separatists find sanctuary in the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, where Iran’s own Sunni Islamist Baluch minority poses a challenge to Tehran. 

If the war curbs the Iranian regime’s influence in the east, it would exponentially magnify Pakistan’s security problem. 

Not only would Pakistan’s Baluch rebels have greater freedom of operation, but the Afghan Taliban would also try to gain influence in Iran’s east and thus destabilize western Pakistan.

Pakistan has other reasons for involving itself in the Iran war. 

There is a risk of spillover, for example, that could add to the ranks of its Shiite minority, which comprises some 20 percent of the population. 

Among Pakistani Shiite communities, there is an ideological and emotional affinity for the Islamic Republic that amplifies the sensitivity of any perceived deterioration in Tehran’s position. 

At the same time, broader anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. sentiment within Pakistan’s Sunni majority has also generated a degree of latent sympathy for Iran despite its geopolitical alignment. 

Against this backdrop, the erosion of Iran and its Shiite axis – coupled with Pakistan’s close partnership with Saudi Arabia – raises the prospect of intensified geosectarian polarization, a dynamic Islamabad has every reason to avoid.

The principal incentive for mediating, though, is the desire to avoid being drawn into a Saudi-Iran conflict, particularly in the event of intensified Iranian retaliatory strikes against Riyadh. 

Having concluded the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement with Riyadh last September, Islamabad risks being pulled into direct commitments that could obligate it to support its Gulf partner militarily. 

Over the past week, Pakistan has reportedly deployed air assets and additional troops to Saudi Arabia under the framework of this agreement, underscoring the operational implications of its alignment. 

At the same time, Pakistan doesn’t want to overextend itself, given mounting pressures on its western frontier as well as persistent tensions with India (with which it fought a brief four-day war last May).

And so what began as a largely defensive move shaped by threat perception has increasingly evolved into a strategic opportunity for Pakistan to reposition itself as a regional interlocutor. 

By facilitating U.S.-Iran engagement at a moment when negotiations appear to be gaining traction, Islamabad has created new avenues to deepen and stabilize its relationship with Washington. 

At the same time, its diplomatic utility has significantly elevated its standing and influence not only in the Middle East but across the broader West Asian strategic landscape. 

In effect, Pakistan has begun to recast itself as a partner of the U.S, capable of advancing the Trump White House’s emerging geostrategic approach of burden-sharing and selective delegation of regional security responsibilities.

The bottom line is that Pakistan is increasingly consolidating its position as the third pillar (alongside Turkey and Saudi Arabia) of an emerging U.S.-aligned regional security architecture shaped by a new emphasis on burden-sharing. 

In this configuration, Islamabad is likely to remain an intermediary not only in managing Iranian geopolitics but in broader regional stabilization efforts, as reflected in its participation in initiatives such as the Board of Peace for Gaza. 

This expanded role signals a structural shift in Pakistan’s strategic profile from a primarily South Asian security actor to one embedded in the wider West Asian diplomacy and crisis management. 

The central test for Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia will be navigating their evolving relationships with Israel amid the volatility unleashed in a post-Oct. 7 world.