DESPITE Pakistan’s robust Track 2.0 diplomacy, sustained regional consultations with all major stakeholders, active global cooperation and China’s persistent counsel of restraint to both sides, the third US-Iran war has severely undermined prospects for regional peace and stability as well as the smooth and reliable supply of energy and food. With Iran now officially rejecting a peace agreement and resuming full-scale war, the doves of peace seem to have lost their wings while the vultures of destruction soar ever higher.

According to diplomatic sources and international media, the Iranian government requested a 10-day truce, but Donald Trump rejected it due to complex issues on both sides, leaving the conflict to intensify across multiple fronts. Meanwhile, the widening rift between Iran’s civilian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), coupled with Israel’s powerful lobby, has fuelled an escalating cycle of attacks, causing grave damage to states, communities and enterprises, while holding the GCC and the wider regional and global economies hostage to the expanding machinery of war.

Despite receiving funds from Qatar and the UAE and holding technical negotiations in Switzerland, the IRGC made a strategic blunder by attacking a Qatari........

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