On February 28, American and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a string of senior officials, opening a war that has since dragged in Gulf states, shut the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping, and rattled a global economy still recovering from the last set of shocks. Nobody expected Pakistan to end up brokering the peace.

Islamabad’s first instinct was simply to avoid picking a side, condemning the strikes on Iran and, just as pointedly, condemning Iranian retaliation against Gulf neighbours. That refusal to commit turned out to be exactly the asset nobody else in the region could offer. China, despite having brokered the Saudi-Iran rapprochement back in 2023, largely sat this one out.

European governments, hurting badly from the closure of Hormuz, issued statements and little else. India opted out entirely. Pakistan, tied closely to Tehran by a 900-kilometre border and just as closely to Riyadh by decades of financial and military links, was one of the only capitals both warring sides would still answer the phone for.

None of that amounts to Pakistan single-handedly saving the world, and nobody at the UN has claimed as much.

None of that amounts to Pakistan single-handedly saving the world, and nobody at the UN has claimed as much.

That positioning produced results fast, if not lasting ones. Pakistan helped secure a ceasefire by April 8,........

© Daily Times