How Pakistan Became the Iran War’s Unlikely Peace Negotiator

Joshua Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

As the United States and Iran inch toward a peace deal, Pakistan has emerged as an unlikely but indispensable mediator in the negotiations. It has hosted high-level talks in Islamabad and shuttled proposals between the two sides as they work toward a lasting ceasefire.

It’s a remarkable role change for Pakistan. For years, the country has been viewed as a pariah state. Just saying its name brought to mind political instability, military rule and harsh crackdowns on freedoms [PDF], support for terrorist groups, domestic insurgencies in Balochistan province, and the constant threat of war with neighboring India. The country had few real partners other than China, to whom it owed nearly $70 billion, and it has had a massive list of International Monetary Fund debt bailouts dating back decades.

Indeed, experts have been labeling Pakistan a failed state for decades. While it has nuclear weapons, its lack of nuclear security long has raised fears that terrorist groups could gain control of at least some of its weapons. Showing the lack of clear leadership, the country’s leaders have been so fearful that its nuclear weapons might be attacked by India that, at one point, it was reportedly driving the nukes around the country in unguarded delivery vans. It also backed the return of the Taliban to lead Afghanistan, but it then fell out with the Islamist government in Kabul and went to war with its former ally earlier this year.

However, the tide seems to be shifting for Pakistan. Islamabad has begun to exert sizable regional and global influence and is being courted by states across the world. It has found some success as the primary negotiator between the United States and Iran in their conflict. Pakistan actually achieved something many diplomats from wealthy democracies and leading global organizations had failed at for nearly five decades: producing direct talks between Washington and Tehran. Islamabad also has played a role in the recent Lebanon ceasefire.

Regionally, too, Pakistan has positioned itself as an important partner. It has worked to engage landlocked Central Asian states, which can export their products through Pakistan’s seaports; Southeast Asian states, which have seen increased two-way trade; and countries in the Middle East, signing a major bilateral defense pact with Saudi Arabia in 2025 and deepening ties with Turkey and Egypt. There have even been discussions of a kind of quadrilateral security alignment with Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

Even Washington appears to want a closer relationship with Islamabad despite the two governments’ complicated history. Pakistan’s relations with the United States, which were relatively strong in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, had quickly turned sour in the subsequent decade. The Atlantic in 2011 memorably called it the U.S. “ally from hell,” noting the country’s sheltering of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (knowingly or not) and the alleged role that Pakistan’s intelligence service played in sponsoring terrorists. U.S. President Donald Trump himself denied Pakistan military aid during his first term, saying that it was not effectively combating terrorism.

And yet, the second Trump White House—unlike past presidential administrations of both parties—does not seem to care that Pakistan is a highly authoritarian state, any more than it allows El Salvador’s repressiveness to get in the way of bilateral links. Without any interest in human rights in Pakistan, it becomes much easier to build ties with Islamabad. The White House has begun to view Islamabad as a state that can bring together South Asian and Middle Eastern countries, along with developed democracies. Pakistan also contains critical rare earths, which it has begun shipping to the United States.

The Trump administration also seems to be warming to Pakistan because U.S. ties with India—which had grown tighter for over two decades—have effectively collapsed, so the White House has turned to Islamabad instead. Relations between New Delhi and Washington are at new low due to the Trump administration’s high tariffs on India, new barriers to H1-B visas, and anger over Indian purchases of Russian oil. In addition, relations have worsened because Trump’s claims that the United States acted as a critical mediator in the conflict between India and Pakistan last year—claims that have been disputed—infuriated New Delhi, which has always refused outside mediation in its disputes with Pakistan. As defense expert Happymon Jacob noted in Foreign Affairs, “American officials have been careful not to offend Indian sensitivities in this area [referring to Washington’s claim to mediate between Delhi and Islamabad]—but Trump doubled down.”