Pakistan has a history of strategic overreach: after decades of supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, it’s now fighting them. Is Pakistan now guilty of similar overreach with respect to its “mediation” effort in enabling the ceasefire between Iran and the US?
First of all, the term mediator implies somebody who has the confidence of all the warring parties. In this case, Pakistan had none with Israel. They don’t have diplomatic relations. As Israel’s Ambassador to India Reuven Azar noted, Pakistan is not a “credible player”.
The manner in which the ceasefire has unravelled within 24 hours of being announced underscores the weight of that remark. Not that it mattered for the Pakistani media, which went to town about the ‘Islamabad Accords’ that were claimed would bring an end to the fighting in the Gulf.
Note the triumphant tone of the post Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif posted on X: “With the greatest humility, I am pleased to announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.”
For a short while, Pakistan became a hero. Italy’s former prime minister Paolo Gentiloni suggested Islamabad deserved a peace prize for its efforts. Fake posts on social media showed Pakistani travellers being welcomed all over the world. One even claimed an immigration officer suggested that he marry his daughter!
The narrative began to fray as Israel rejected the claim that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal. Prime Minister Netanyahu then proceeded to launch one of Israel’s heaviest strikes on over 100 Hezbollah command centres and military sites across Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and southern Lebanon, killing more than 250 people.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian countered that a Lebanon ceasefire was an essential condition of Tehran’s agreement with Washington — exposing a fundamental divergence in what the parties believed they had signed onto.
So what went wrong? According to a Pakistani journalist quoted by India Today, his country’s role was that of a facilitator, carrying messages from the US to Iran and back. Proof was visible in Sharif’s official announcement about the ceasefire, which carried the telling description “Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X.”
As American TV news channels pointed out, that description indicated the US had sent it to Sharif. The messaging was scripted, and Washington’s hand was visible.
The wording of the deal also has a few gaps that remain open. Tehran’s 10-point proposal, which Iranian state media reported as accepted by the Trump administration, contains a notable asymmetry.
A key Iranian demand — US acceptance of Iran’s uranium enrichment — appears in the Farsi-language version of the ceasefire plan. It is absent from the English version. Whether that reflects a translation oversight or deliberate ambiguity in the negotiating text is a question neither side has answered.
For Pakistan, the embarrassment is obvious, but for that country’s leaders, embarrassment is probably a small price to pay for proximity to President Trump.
Also Watch: ‘Iran Ceasefire Embeds All Things Tehran Wanted While Israel Keeps Failing’ || The Gist
