Celebrated Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes once wrote, “There are years when nothing happens and years in which centuries happen. These days, everything seems to be happening at the same time.”

Few lines can better capture the velocity of the present Iran crisis. Just 24 hours earlier, we were sitting at the edge of our seats, worried sick about the dreaded start of World War III. Understandably so, as US President Donald Trump had openly broadcast his threat to “wipe out Iranian civilisation.”

However, in a jaw-dropping U-turn, that too when the doomsday clock ticked five seconds to doomsday, a surprising tweet by a humble middlepower routinely making headlines for fighting for its survival turned the tables. KABOOM!

The most telling development in this crisis is no longer the theatrics of Donald Trump’s deadline politics. It is the fact that, as formal multilateral machinery faltered, Pakistan moved from the margins of the story to its hinge. The United Nations Security Council could not even agree on a diluted formula for securing commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz: Bahrain’s draft won 11 votes, yet Russia and China vetoed it, while Pakistan and Colombia abstained. Earlier versions of the resolution had already been stripped of harder language, including Chapter VII references, to avoid precisely that outcome. What failed in New York was not only a resolution. It was the comforting belief that routine diplomacy, by itself, still had enough authority to contain a war now entangled with oil, great-power rivalry and domestic political calculation.

Half a century after Pakistani diplomats used their exceptional personal relationship with Beijing to secure a direct channel for communication between the Nixon administration and Chinese leadership, the country has once again risen on the world stage as the main go-between for proposals exchanged by Washington and Tehran.

Half a century after Pakistani diplomats used their exceptional personal relationship with Beijing to secure a direct channel for communication between the Nixon administration and Chinese leadership, the country has once again risen on the world stage as the main go-between for proposals exchanged by Washington and Tehran.

That failure has made intermediaries more valuable, and none has mattered more in recent days than Pakistan. International media reports that as Trump’s deadline approached, Pakistan emerged as a key mediator in securing the two-week pause, with Shehbaz Sharif’s public appeal helping set the stage for Trump’s decision to step back after talks with Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir. Half a century after Pakistani diplomats used their exceptional personal relationship with Beijing to secure a direct channel for communication between the Nixon administration and Chinese leadership, the country has once again risen on the world stage as the main go-between for proposals exchanged by Washington and Tehran. Prime Minister Sharif has already announced that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed participation in talks with the United States in Islamabad. This is no longer the story of a state merely offering good offices. It is the story of a state that, in a moment of maximum danger, had enough access to all sides to make itself useful where institutions did not.

That, in turn, clarifies Pakistan’s abstention at the Security Council. It was not passivity, and it was not indifference to maritime security. It was a refusal to become formally attached to one method of managing the crisis while Islamabad was trying to preserve something more valuable: room to talk to everybody. The final Hormuz draft had already been cut back to “defensive coordination” and escort language, and still could not survive a veto. In those circumstances, Pakistan’s value lay not in casting a symbolic vote but in keeping channels open between capitals that still distrusted one another more than they feared global disruption.

This is also where Pakistan’s recent diplomatic makeover matters. Reuters has reported that Islamabad’s restored utility in Washington rests on several developments: deeper White House access for both Sharif and Munir, repeated high-level engagement with Saudi and Iranian leaders, direct contact between Pakistani intermediaries and JD Vance, and a broader effort to balance ties with the US, Gulf states and China at once. Michael Kugelman put the question crisply: “Why has Pakistan remained front & centre in a high stakes and high risk US-Iran peace facilitation effort?” The answer, as he suggests, lies in strong ties with key players, trust from the White House, ongoing engagement with Iran, and Chinese buy-in that gives Islamabad added strategic weight.

Yet this opening should not be romanticised. A ceasefire is not a settlement. At best, it is a pause in which the next arguments are prepared–a fragile respite, one spark away from collapse.

The past few days saw sources in Islamabad suggest that Vance had been communicating through Pakistani intermediaries and privately signalled that Trump was open to a ceasefire if certain American demands were met. Parts of the Trump administration view Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as a potentially workable future partner, while Islamabad is preparing to host US-Iran talks later this week. What can be said with confidence is that Pakistan is trying to convert backchannel leverage into direct diplomacy. What cannot yet be said with confidence is that the political end-state in Tehran has been settled, or that any single Iranian figure has already emerged as the uncontested destination of American policy.

That is why senior journalist Anwar Iqbal’s most usable insight is also the simplest: “Ending this war is beneficial for everyone.” Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas transits Hormuz, and Reuters describes the disruption caused by its closure as the worst energy supply shock of the conflict. The ceasefire is said to have immediately eased pressure on markets, while journalist Azaz Syed says falling global prices could translate into sharp local cuts in petrol and diesel if the government passes the relief through. Even if those domestic figures remain provisional and subject to a final decision in Islamabad, the wider truth is plain enough: in an interdependent energy market, no serious state can pretend that a Gulf war is someone else’s problem.

Still, the truce remains precarious because Pakistan’s brokerage is necessary, not sufficient. Only Washington has the leverage to turn a tactical pause into something more durable, because only Washington can shape the conduct of its own side and impose discipline where its partners may prefer escalation. Trump now says the United States will work closely with Iran and discuss sanctions relief, but it also notes that the core disagreements remain unresolved. Already, violations are being seen in Lebanon. However, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid claims that, as per White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon was not part of the agreement.

The danger, then, is not that diplomacy has failed outright. It is that diplomacy may yet be overwhelmed by the war’s own momentum: retaliatory strikes, maximalist demands, domestic lobbies and the old temptation to confuse coercion with control. There is also a domestic lesson in this episode. In democracies, disagreement is normal and often healthy. But there are moments when a state’s external utility becomes a national asset that should not be casually diminished for short-term partisan gain. Pakistan has, for once, found itself in a position where its geography, relationships and timing have converged into diplomatic relevance. That may not be a reason for triumphalism, yet it is indeed a reason for sobriety, for maturity and for unity.

The ceasefire is only two weeks old. Yet when institutions jam and great powers posture, intermediaries gain value. Pakistan’s challenge is to turn that value into something more lasting than a breathing space. At the narrow gate of Hormuz, that is opportunity enough–and peril enough– for one country.

The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.

© Daily Times