I’ve spent the past few weeks watching something unusual happen: a country that the world discussed a few years back for its problems – debt, politics, security – became the place where a war stopped.
In late February, Iran’s supreme leader was killed in strikes that opened six weeks of fighting across a dozen countries, by some estimates costing thousands of lives, including well over a thousand civilians inside Iran. By early April, with President Trump’s deadline for a final escalation just ninety minutes from expiring, it was Pakistan’s prime minister who announced a ceasefire – not just for Iran, but, as Shehbaz Sharif put it, “everywhere,” including Lebanon, where Hezbollah and Israel had been trading fire. Islamabad then opened its doors to host the follow-up talks. I don’t think that’s a small thing. Analysts who study the region have called it one of Pakistan’s most significant diplomatic achievements in years, and pointed out that it defied a lot of people who didn’t think Islamabad had the capacity to pull it off.
What strikes me more than the ceasefire itself is the reaction to it from two capitals in particular.
Israel’s ambassador to India, Reuven Azar, has not been shy about his irritation. He’s called Pakistan an unreliable, “problematic player” as a mediator, said Washington needs “special caution” in relying on it, and stated plainly that Israel doesn’t trust Pakistan – citing what he describes as Islamabad’s anti-Israel rhetoric as the reason. He’s also made clear he doesn’t see Pakistan as a candidate for the Abraham Accords, and that Israel would rather see other countries take the lead in any regional framework.
I understand why a sitting ambassador might say all of that. What I find harder to read past is the timing and the venue. These weren’t quite diplomatic cables – they were given to Indian media, on the record, while a fragile ceasefire that Pakistan brokered was still finding its footing. India, for its part, has its own reasons to be uneasy. It has spent two decades building a strategic partnership with Israel and has invested heavily in being seen as the responsible, Western-aligned power of South Asia. Watching its long-time rival get credited – by American officials, by international media, even by a former Indian high commissioner to Islamabad – for pulling the region back from the edge of catastrophe is, I’d guess, not an easy thing to sit with.
Pakistan didn’t ask to be the channel between Washington and Tehran — it became one because, as one former Pakistani ambassador to Iran noted, it’s the only country in the region with workable relations with both.
This is exactly what responsible states are supposed to do. Pakistan is not trying to export war. It is trying to prevent one. That matters because the cost of this conflict was never going to remain limited to Iran and the United States. India itself had a direct economic stake in de-escalation. Outlook reported that disruption around the Strait of Hormuz affected 41% of India’s crude imports, while India’s crude basket rose sharply from $69 a barrel in February to $126 in March, peaking at $157.
None of that makes the criticism untrue by default. Pakistan’s own diplomats have acknowledged its limits as a mediator – it doesn’t have the heft to do this alone, which is part of why it’s worked alongside Egypt and Turkey, and why it pushed China to back a five-point plan rather than going it alone. The ceasefire is going smoothly.
But I keep coming back to a simple point: if you want a ceasefire to fail, you don’t praise the people trying to hold it together. The countries with the most to lose from this peace holding are not, as far as I can tell, the ones who built it. Pakistan didn’t ask to be the channel between Washington and Tehran – it became one because, as one former Pakistani ambassador to Iran noted, it’s the only country in the region with workable relations with both. That’s not a conspiracy. It’s geography and patience, applied at a moment when very few other countries had either available.
Whether the criticism from Delhi and Tel Aviv is principled scepticism or something closer to sour grapes, I’ll let readers decide for themselves. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s loudest right now. The real issue is simple: peace threatens propaganda. If the war continues, hawks can keep selling fear. If the war stops, diplomacy gets credit, so does Pakistan. And if Pakistan gets any credit, India’s anti-Pakistan ecosystem loses one of its favourite talking points.
The writer is a Political Science student and Research Analyst at The Claremont Colleges and Ball State University and has been covering international politics and press freedom since 2016, with a focus on digital rights, media suppression, and the intersection of technology and democracy.