For Pakistan, mediation in the Iran war is self-preservation

A visitor strolling through Islamabad could be forgiven for thinking that 1971 happened only yesterday. Accounts of the loss of East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh) occupy prominent space in bookstores, while references to the war regularly pop up in political discourse, media commentary and private conversation. More than five decades later, the event remains one of the defining reference points of Pakistan's national consciousness and continues to cast a long shadow over the country's strategic thinking as a cautionary tale about external intervention.

Understanding Pakistan's approach to the current US-Israel-Iran crisis, therefore, requires looking to the past and understanding the influence of 1971 on Pakistani policymakers.

Today, this deeply ingrained anxiety is playing out on the global stage. A flurry of media reports, leaks and carefully worded official statements suggest that a breakthrough in efforts to end the Iran war may finally be within reach, despite US President Donald Trump’s ominous threats to wipe out Iran’s civilian infrastructure, again.

While obstacles remain, the consensus in Washington, Tehran and regional capitals is that negotiations have entered a decisive phase. At the center of the high-stakes diplomacy stands Pakistan’s enigmatic and media-shy Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who has been widely portrayed as the principal intermediary shuttling between rival camps to help narrow differences over issues that only months ago appeared irreconcilable. His arrival in Tehran on 23 May was followed by reports of “encouraging progress” on a “largely negotiated” agreement.

For many observers, the sight of Pakistan’s army chief playing such a central role in one of the most dangerous geopolitical crises of the decade would have seemed improbable. Yet, this heavy investment in mediation is a direct product of the survivalist mindset forged in the aftermath of 1971.

The territorial dismemberment and psychological rupture of that war, which some have described as “national humiliation”, is hardwired into the psyche of the country’s policy and military establishment. They view national survival as a national imperative, leaving them ever-vigilant against perceived encirclement and external conspiracies to foment internal dissent or ethno-sectarian unrest.

From Islamabad's perspective, prolonged turmoil in neighboring Iran poses grave, immediate threats to Pakistan's own security and territorial integrity.

As retired Pakistani Major General Tariq Rashid Khan explained: “The trauma of 1971 created a lasting security mindset in Islamabad that views regional instability, particularly any disruption or blockade of critical international waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz, through the lens of national security and strategic survival rather than diplomacy alone. Pakistani policymakers remain highly sensitive to any scenario that could invite foreign intervention, regional fragmentation, or strategic encirclement.”

He added: “Since 1971, Pakistan has remained cautious of any ‘two-front pressure’ scenario involving simultaneous challenges on both its eastern and western borders.”

That history also explains the significance Pakistan attaches to its May 2025 four-day confrontation with India. Militarily, the episode may not have tilted the regional balance of power, as Pakistan, India and China all have nuclear weapons. Psychologically, however, Pakistani officials parlayed it as evidence that the country had come of age as a military power, marked by the display of advanced fighter aircraft developed locally with Chinese cooperation, cyber capabilities and sophisticated operational planning.

 

 

The domestic discourse was not pegged to conventional metrics of war, such as territorial gains or losses inflicted, but on what Pakistan believed it had demonstrated to the world. After decades in which it was viewed primarily through the optic of terrorism or dependence on external patrons, from the US to China, Islamabad sought to reposition itself “as a constructive regional stakeholder,” said Maj. Gen. Tariq Rashid Khan.

He desribed Pakistan, “as a potential bridge between competing powers,” and a country “capable of engaging simultaneously with major global actors, including the United States, China and Russia, while advocating regional stability and conflict de-escalation.

As such, the four-day war with India was a declarative moment. Pakistan, in its own telling, had arrived.

That sense of arrival, however, does not mean it is insulated from risks of spillover. Flare-ups in Iran can quickly trigger massive refugee flows into Pakistan’s already strained frontier regions and intensify patterns of cross-border insecurity. It can also disrupt trade corridors and informal economic networks linking the two countries.

The ethnic Baloch population straddles both sides of the border, with kinship ties and militant movements that actively flout state lines. To the northwest, Afghanistan forms part of the same volatile security equation, where instability in one area quickly bleeds into the next. Both Islamabad and Tehran are wary of the Taliban regime in Kabul, and the growing threat of the Islamic State’s Khorasan province (ISIS-K).

This is why mediation, for Pakistan, is existential. Islamabad is not attempting to save the Islamic Republic, nor is it seeking to rescue Trump from the blowback of a reckless confrontation. It is trying to ensure that a regional fire does not reach its own doorstep.

There are other reasons why Pakistan is motivated to act as an interlocutor. In March, Islamabad convened a gathering of traditional Middle Eastern heavyweights, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, to chart a path out of the conflict. Some observers saw this as Pakistan beginning to rebrand itself as the “elder brother” in the room – or a “brother-in-arms,” as one pundit put it – rather than a peripheral observer, leveraging its status as the only Muslim-majority nuclear power.

Pakistan also draws from social and cultural connectivity that predates the current crisis. These include historic pilgrimage routes and the presence of Shia communities that move across borders in both directions. Pakistan's Shia Muslim population numbers close to 50 million out of the nation’s 259 million population, one of the largest Shia populations in the world. The country has had Shia leaders, such as Benazir Bhutto and her father, Zulfikar Bhutto. It is not surprising, then, that Pakistan possesses Shia politicians who can serve as interlocutors with Shia Iran on shared interests involving this demographic.

Within this context, figures such as Pakistan’s Interior Minister Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi, who has been rumoured to be involved in facilitating backchannel contacts, reflect Islamabad’s ability to read Iranian political and cultural sensitivities with a degree of familiarity that external mediators often lack.

Furthermore, Pakistan’s defense pact with Saudi Arabia will prove important for the next reconciliation, helping bring Riyadh and Tehran together to overcome how the two regional rivals in the Gulf often leverage sectarian differences to advance their secular interests of projecting power in this contested waterway. 

Pakistan's heavy investment in resolving the Iran crisis would only appear disproportionate to those who overlook the country's history in other fraught situations. In 1971, Islamabad helped facilitate the opening between the United States and China under Richard Nixon and later contributed to complex efforts around the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, culminating in the Geneva Accords of 1988.

If Islamabad considers itself indispensable to the current process, it is because if Iran burns, Pakistan will feel the heat. Still, there is both danger and opportunity ahead. The endgame could yield potential cooperation on managing Baloch terror networks operating across the shared border, as well as more coordinated approaches to Afghanistan’s instability and the threat of ISIS-K.

For Tehran and Islamabad, there are also longer-term prospects for defence coordination, and maritime trade integration via Arabian Sea connectivity corridors.

A successful mediation effort would defuse tensions and recalibrate engagement between two frequently strained neighbours. There is, of course, also the hope in Islamabad that Washington may employ Pakistan as a trusted mediator for other West Asian conflicts in the future. That is the pragmatic play driving Pakistan today. A fire rarely stays confined once it begins but by helping to keep the fire from spreading, it is Pakistan that ultimately stands to gain the most.

Ibrahim al-Marashi is associate professor of Middle East history, visiting faculty at The American College of the Mediterranean, and the Department of International Relations at Central European University. His publications include Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (2008), The Modern History of Iraq (2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (2024).

Tanya Goudsouzian is a Canadian journalist who has covered Afghanistan and the Middle East for over two decades. She has held senior editorial roles at major international media outlets, including serving as Opinion Editor at Al Jazeera English.

Follow Ibrahim on X: @ialmarashi

Follow Tanya on X: @tgoudsouzian

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.