From diplomatic pariah to ceasefire broker — in twelve months.
Twelve months ago, Pakistan was barely welcome at the table. Today, it is helping set the terms for a ceasefire in the Middle East. That reversal — from diplomatic pariah to trusted go-between in one of the region's most dangerous conflicts — is among the more striking geopolitical pivots of recent years, and it has been engineered largely by one man: Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan's military chief.
Munir has met with President Donald Trump on multiple occasions, including a private one-on-one lunch at the White House — the first time a sitting American president has received Pakistan's military chief without any civilian counterpart present. Trump has taken to calling him his "favourite field marshal." Munir was also the only serving military chief at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, where further conversations with Trump reportedly took place. Since the Iran war began, he has spoken with Vice President JD Vance multiple times. As recently as this past Tuesday, Vance was communicating through Pakistani intermediaries about the conflict, signalling that Washington sees Islamabad as a viable channel — and that Trump is open to a ceasefire if certain conditions are met.
The road to this moment was long and rough. After U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil in 2011, relations with Washington cratered. The imprisonment of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, persistent accusations that Pakistan had quietly backed the Taliban during the two-decade Afghan war, and a near-catastrophic debt default all compounded the isolation. Analysts and officials point to two specific events that began reversing the slide.
The first came in March of last year, when Pakistan helped capture a suspect connected to the 2021 Kabul airport bombing — an attack that killed 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers. Trump publicly thanked Pakistan, and intelligence sharing resumed. Former ambassador Maleeha Lodhi described that cooperation as critical to unwinding decades of accumulated mistrust. The second turning point arrived in May, when a 90-hour military clash with India ended with Pakistan claiming to have shot down Indian fighter jets. Foreign office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said the episode, and the restraint Pakistan's military showed in not escalating further, delivered a significant boost to the country's standing. Both Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif subsequently nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The architecture of Pakistan's comeback rests on a civil-military partnership that analysts describe as unusually tight. Mosharraf Zaidi, Sharif's spokesperson, told Reuters that the trust between the field marshal and the prime minister has been the single most important factor in widening Pakistan's diplomatic reach. Sharif has held repeated meetings with Trump, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Pakistan signed a mutual defence agreement with Saudi Arabia last year. On Sunday, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar convened counterparts from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in Islamabad for talks aimed at ending the Iran war.
The country has also worked to shore up its relationship with China while simultaneously deepening ties with Washington — a balancing act that Arsla Jawaid, a global risk analyst at Control Risks, says is beginning to show results. Deals on the table with the U.S. include investment discussions and a cryptocurrency arrangement linked to a Trump family business, blending commercial incentives with strategic alignment.
Not everyone is pleased. In India, Pakistan's rise is generating what one analyst called heartburn. India has historically held the stronger diplomatic profile between the two rivals, but opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor acknowledged this week that Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey have moved into the peace-broker role that India could have claimed. "India gets no credit while Pakistan is holding the peace talks," he said.
The risks for Pakistan are real and layered. Its economy remains fragile despite the IMF deal reached roughly eighteen months ago. The defence pact with Saudi Arabia — a Sunni power — could inflame Pakistan's own Shia community, the second-largest in the world after Iran's. An ongoing conflict with Afghanistan, which intensified just before U.S. and Israeli strikes on Tehran, adds another front of instability. Analysts warn that overreaching as a mediator, without the economic and institutional foundations to sustain it, could unravel the gains quickly.
What Pakistan has built is real but provisional. The question now is whether Islamabad can hold its position at the centre of a fast-moving conflict without being pulled into it — and whether the country's internal fragilities will allow its leadership to keep playing the long game.
Notable Quotes
If there is one factor above all that has fuelled the widening of diplomatic opportunity for Pakistan, it is the trust and symbiosis between the field marshal and prime minister.— Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesperson for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif
India gets no credit while Pakistan is holding the peace talks.— Shashi Tharoor, Indian opposition lawmaker
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
A year ago Pakistan was essentially frozen out. What actually changed?
Two things, mostly. Pakistan helped the U.S. capture a suspect in the Kabul airport bombing — 13 American soldiers died in that attack — and then came the India clash, where Pakistan claimed to have downed Indian jets and then pulled back. Both moments let Pakistan demonstrate usefulness without recklessness.
Why does Munir matter so much personally?
Because in Pakistan, the military has always held the real levers of power, even when civilian governments are in office. Trump's decision to meet Munir alone at the White House was essentially an acknowledgment of that reality — Washington was dealing with whoever actually runs things.
What does the U.S. actually want from Pakistan right now?
A channel to Iran, mostly. Pakistan has relationships on multiple sides — with Saudi Arabia through a defence pact, with Iran through geography and a shared Shia population, and now with Washington through Munir. That triangulation makes it useful in a way few countries can replicate.
And what does Pakistan want in return?
Legitimacy, investment, and breathing room on the economy. The IMF deal stabilized things, but the country is still fragile. The crypto deal with a Trump-linked business, the investment talks — those aren't incidental. They're part of the price Pakistan is negotiating for its cooperation.
You mentioned Pakistan's Shia community. How serious is that risk?
Quite serious. Pakistan has the world's second-largest Shia population after Iran. If the Saudi defence pact pulls Pakistan into active support for a war against Tehran, that's not just a foreign policy problem — it's a domestic one that could turn violent.
India seems to have missed an opening here.
That's the quiet story underneath this one. India has historically been the more diplomatically prominent of the two rivals. But it stayed on the sidelines of the Iran conflict, and now Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt are the ones hosting the peace talks. That's a shift in regional standing that won't be easy to reverse quickly.