This is already in motion. Pakistan has conveyed an American proposal to Iran. It has offered to host. A meeting is set.
This is not mediation. It is control. Whoever defines the room defines the outcome. And this file defines security: Israel, the US, the Gulf, the West, and India. There is only one answer: not Pakistan.
Pakistan can pass messages. It cannot hold an agreement. A mediator gives up interest. Pakistan cannot. A state with an interest is not a middle ground. It is a side.
The state that produced the A.Q. Khan network, which supplied enrichment technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, cannot act as the guardian of an arrangement meant to restrain Iran. The party that created the problem does not guarantee its solution.
For years, Washington failed to dismantle terror safe havens in northwestern Pakistan despite deep reliance on the Pakistani military and massive investment. In 2026, the assessment remains severe: terrorism, conflict zones, escalating attacks, and rising casualties. A state struggling for continuity, infrastructure security, and control over sensitive spaces does not build an agreement with Iran. It seeks respite.
“Pakistan” is not a transparent political term. The actor managing this file in practice is not an open civilian system operating under effective oversight, but first and foremost the military establishment.
In June 2025, Pakistan’s Field Marshal, Asim Munir, received an unprecedented White House lunch without senior Pakistani civilians. In November of that year, the powers of the army chief were expanded in the constitution, the authority of the Supreme Court was curtailed, and judges resigned in protest over a grave assault on the constitutional order.
Pakistani mediation means mediation by the military establishment.
This is how it began. Islamabad has worked to position itself as a “bridge builder” between Washington and Tehran. In January 2026, it already claimed to have played such a role in the nuclear talks.
In November 2025, it hosted Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary in Islamabad for meetings with the prime minister, the foreign minister, and the army chief.
At the same time, it strengthened its direct channels to Trump and his circle through Munir, ongoing political contacts, and a deal with an entity associated with the Trump family’s crypto activity.
This is a conscious attempt to recreate the 1971–1972 moment, when Pakistan served as a secret channel between Washington and Beijing, and to return to the state’s role that cannot be bypassed.
What will Pakistan gain?
It will gain an upgraded standing in Washington after years of suspicion. A softening of criticism over its priorities. Reduced pressure around its missile program, defined at the end of 2024 as an emerging threat to the United States and already sanctioned.
A deeper sense of indispensability in the eyes of Riyadh and the White House alike. An internal gain: the legitimisation of the military establishment’s primacy as Pakistan’s international point of contact.
The war has shown Pakistan how exposed it is to energy shocks and spillovers from the crisis, even as it remains in talks with the IMF. The shift from the battlefield to talks immediately changes energy prices.
It changes market expectations and expands Islamabad’s room for action. Returning Iran to an American track, even partially, puts back on the table the logic of projects and relief measures that have been frozen under sanctions, including energy corridors between Iran and Pakistan.
Iran does not need a neutral mediator. It needs a convenient arena. Pakistan is convenient for it because it is both a direct channel to Washington, a state Tehran regards as friendly enough to thank publicly for full solidarity, and an actor able to speak with Riyadh from a position of closeness.
This directly serves Iran. It will be able to deny direct negotiations with the United States while conducting them in practice. It shifts the American discussion from a dictate of dismantlement to a framework of bargains. It places ceasefire, sanctions, and freedom of navigation ahead of questions of capability, enforcement, and dismantlement.
Who runs such talks? On the American side, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner may appear. On the Iranian side, political representatives will appear, but the decision remains with the Revolutionary Guards and the senior echelon in Tehran.
The format is a sustained channel of deniability: meetings in Islamabad, messages through several capitals, partial drafts, and apparent progress while fighting continues. Israel will be updated. It will not be a party. Result: a gap between the party carrying the threat and the party that will write the wording.
The United States will lose. The mistake is not engagement. It is confusion: temporary usefulness mistaken for lasting suitability.
This pattern is established. Urgency overrides substance. Proliferation, terror safe havens, operational duplicity, and military dependence are deferred. Billions are invested. Sanctuaries remain.
It will repeat itself if Washington entrusts a Pakistani mediator to translate pressure on Iran into a political document. This is the longest strategic error in that relationship: assigning weight to an actor that leverages crises rather than resolves them.
The Gulf states will lose. They define Iranian attacks as existential and demand condemnation and compensation. Pakistan does not enter as its representative. It enters with a defence commitment to Riyadh and a channel to Tehran.
That is a structural conflict of interest. The outcome is not dismantlement. It is managed quietly, with partial repair to shipping and trade, and ambiguity on core issues. De-escalation will come at the price of uncertainty. The credit will not go to those who bear the risk.
The West will lose. It will legitimise a precedent: a state linked to proliferation, active extremist arenas, and military primacy becomes guarantor of a regional arrangement. This is not an adaptation. It is surrender. What is convenient under pressure becomes policy. What is written as achievement becomes structure. Europe requires enforcement. Not process.
India will lose. Pakistan regains the status of a state that cannot be bypassed, precisely where New Delhi rejects third-party mediation.
That elevation occurs while actors operating from its territory remain a recognised threat. An arrangement that recentres Pakistan while India depends on Hormuz and builds alternatives around it does not serve Indian interests.
In closed channels, Jerusalem has made one point clear: Israel is not bound by outcomes drafted in Islamabad, approved in Washington, and delivered from Tehran.
Without dismantlement, intrusive and enforceable oversight, and freedom of action against violation, there is no agreement. There is a pause.
Preparation is already underway.
Pakistan can pass messages. It cannot hold an agreement.
This serves Tehran. It tempts Washington. It benefits Islamabad. It will not hold.
Convenience is not competence. Access is not credibility.
If Washington chooses Pakistan because it is available, not because it is right, it repeats the same pattern: placing crises in the hands of those who profit from them.
Such an agreement does not remove the threat. It defers it. Israel rejects it in advance.
Shay Gal is an Israeli analyst who works with governments and international institutions on strategy, risk, and security policy in high-stakes environments.
