Pakistan can mediate between Washington and Tehran, but it cannot manufacture trust

When Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, met Iranian leaders in Tehran last Tuesday, he heard a familiar message in a harder form. President Masoud Pezeshkian said Washington must lift sanctions and pressure before talks resume. Security chief Mohsen Rezaei said no enriched material would leave Iran. After Munir left, a Qatari delegation arrived, a reminder that Islamabad no longer carries this file alone.

The real test is not whether Pakistan can soften Tehran’s opening position. It is whether it can help two adversaries negotiate commitments neither believes the other will honour.

The Islamabad Memorandum, signed on 17 June, extended the ceasefire for 60 days and promised to reopen Hormuz and lift the US blockade. It also pledged oil-export waivers. By 8 July it had collapsed after Iranian strikes on commercial vessels and a US response, and Washington reinstated the blockade six days later. The lesson is not merely that signatures are cheap. The text allowed each side to claim a different meaning. Iran read a “best efforts” clause on passage as giving it some authority over the strait, while the two sides disagreed over the strait provisions from the start. No neutral body existed to say who was right.

Pakistan deserves credit for building a channel between enemies. Few governments can speak to Iran, keep close ties with Washington and engage the Gulf capitals. But access is not leverage.

Islamabad cannot lift American sanctions, settle the enrichment dispute or guarantee that armed actors across the region will respect a ceasefire.

Nor is Pakistan an uninvolved broker. It shares a border with Iran, depends on Gulf energy and is a party to the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, under which it has pledged to defend Saudi Arabia as Houthi attacks hit Saudi infrastructure. A mediator that has promised to defend one side’s partner cannot claim neutrality. It can claim something narrower and more useful: both sides have reason to keep its channel open.

That is why Pakistan should narrow its ambitions. It should not chase a grand reconciliation. It should help build a process in which limited cooperation does not require either capital to trust the other’s intentions.

The core problem is credible commitment. Tehran sees sanctions, blockades and strikes as proof that American assurances are unreliable. Washington sees enrichment and regional military activity as proof that Iranian promises are. Each wants the other to move first. Reuters has reported Iranian officials saying Tehran is deliberately slowing talks to weaken President Trump before the November midterms. If so, deadlock is a strategy for some, not just a failure.

The strongest objection to mediation is therefore serious: Islamabad cannot change either side’s strategic calculation, and its ties to Washington and Riyadh complicate any claim to impartiality. Iran’s decision-making is also fragmented. Munir’s August visit followed a change in Iran’s military hierarchy, so an understanding with civilian officials could fail elsewhere.

Even so, neutrality is not the only measure of a useful intermediary. What matters is whether messages are conveyed faithfully, whether the channel is trusted and whether steps can be independently checked.

A modest agenda would start at sea. Agreed procedures for reporting attacks on shipping, exchanging operational notices and investigating alleged violations would not need a nuclear settlement. But Iran’s claim to administer the strait is a sovereignty question, not an incident-management one. The June memorandum left the strait’s future administration to Iran in consultation with Oman and other Gulf states. That question must be put on the table, with partners such as Oman, which has facilitated US-Iran channels before, rather than papered over with vague wording.

The second track should pair reciprocal, time-limited steps. The June memorandum already linked the strait to sanctions waivers, so the difference this time must be design: smaller steps, explicit sequencing, reversibility and no side surrendering its main leverage on a promise.

The nuclear file needs different machinery. Iran’s refusal to export its stockpile and Washington’s demand for limits are substantive disagreements, not misunderstandings. The IAEA can verify agreed limits, but it cannot invent the bargain or inspect without a legal basis and access. Reports of a Qatari–Pakistani proposal linking inspections to interest on frozen funds rest on anonymous sources, and an Iranian parliamentary spokesman described Munir’s trip as bilateral only. Still, they point in the right direction: link access to relief.

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Any new arrangement should specify who verifies compliance, how disputed incidents are judged and what happens after a breach. A joint implementation group with independent technical expertise could set deadlines, document performance and resolve accusations before they trigger retaliation.

Pakistan should also resist competing for credit. Qatar is already a co-mediator, and Oman has long experience with Gulf security channels. The goal is an effective process, not Pakistani ownership of it.

None of this guarantees peace. If either government believes time or escalation favours it, the best verification system will sit unused. Regional actors can also wreck understandings reached in negotiating rooms.

For the world, the stakes are tangible. Threats to Gulf shipping unsettle energy markets and raise costs for households and importers everywhere. For Pakistan, the danger is closer still.

Islamabad has shown it can bring adversaries toward an agreement. The harder, less theatrical task is helping them build one that survives the next crisis. Pakistan can open the door to diplomacy. It cannot supply the trust Washington and Tehran lack. What it can help supply is a system that makes cooperation possible without it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.