Why Pakistan’s Military Diplomacy Can’t Paper Over the Fractured US-Iran Fault Lines
The flurry of high-level diplomatic shuttling from Islamabad to Tehran reads like a thrilling geopolitical drama, but the underlying reality is far less optimistic. With Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi practically camping in Tehran and Field Marshal Asim Munir arriving for decisive consultations, Islamabad is pulling out all the stops. Acting as the primary pipeline for backchannel communications between the Trump administration and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Pakistan is trying to save a fragile, stop-start ceasefire. While the effort is commendable, looking beneath the diplomatic optics reveals that Pakistan’s mediation, despite its urgency, is merely applying a temporary band-aid to a gaping structural wound. The core divergence between Washington and Tehran is not a misunderstanding that a skilled military diplomat can smooth over; it is a fundamental collision of national survival strategies. Why Pakistan Was Forced to Move from Neutral Bystander to Active...