A Tass report with Islamabad dateline confirmed a few hours ago that the US-Iran talks will be held on Saturday at the Serena Hotel in the city “and are expected to last several days.” The incredible blunder of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel just two days before the vicious US and Israeli attack on Iran played into the hands of Pakistan’s diplomacy, which has been on the rise since then in West Asian politics.

It is culminating this weekend in the country’s appearance at the centre stage of international diplomacy as the principal broker of the US-Iran truce that is poised to lead to the first high-level political talks between the United States and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

This is another landmark event in Pakistan’s international diplomacy after facilitating the Sino-American détente 55 years ago. Ignoring the scornful  remarks on Pakistan’s role by high officials and spokesmen of the ruling elite in Delhi belittling the leaders in Islamabad as ‘Dalal’, ‘Postman’, ‘Courier’, etc, Pakistan shrewdly walked through the door opened by Modi innocently by his untimely visit to Israel, to stride into the vortex of the war in the Persian Gulf in an improbable role of ‘Vishwaguru’ (world leader).   

Be that as it may, the US-Iran truce looks fragile and ridden with contradictions. But then, arguably, it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. The famous quote about quitting by the Irish poet and playwright Samuel Beckett comes to mind, ‘Ever tried, Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ 

The contradictions in the current scenario are not easy........

© Eurasia Review