It’s hard to say which is a bigger achievement for Islamabad’s diplomacy: U.S. President Donald Trump’s shift toward Pakistan or the buzz over the recently announced Saudi-Pakistani “Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement,” both of which are reverberating across Southwest Asia—though the U.S. tilt may prove ephemeral.

The accord highlights a tsunami of near-Kissingerian diplomacy in just the past six months: a stunning reset with the United States—at India’s expense, boosted defense and trade ties with Turkey, a defense accord with Malaysia, a trade and energy deal with Iran that was announced during an August visit by the Iranian president, and the expansion of already strong ties to China during Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s September trip to Beijing.

It’s hard to say which is a bigger achievement for Islamabad’s diplomacy: U.S. President Donald Trump’s shift toward Pakistan or the buzz over the recently announced Saudi-Pakistani “Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement,” both of which are reverberating across Southwest Asia—though the U.S. tilt may prove ephemeral.

The accord highlights a tsunami of near-Kissingerian diplomacy in just the past six months: a stunning reset with the United States—at India’s expense, boosted defense and trade ties with Turkey, a defense accord with Malaysia, a trade and energy deal with Iran that was announced during an August visit by the Iranian president, and the expansion of already strong ties to China during Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s September trip to Beijing.

Pakistan’s buoyancy is all the more remarkable considering that last spring, as the country got its 24th bailout from the International Monetary Fund, the financial world’s worry was that Pakistan might become a failed state. The sense of surprise among South Asia wonks at how swiftly technocratic officials have stabilized their economy rivals their amazement at Islamabad’s diplomatic bounty. All these achievements come despite growing terrorist insurgencies in Balochistan and among the Pakistani Taliban along the country’s border with Afghanistan.

What does this mean in the long term? The proximate cause for the Saudi-Pakistani defense pact appears to be Israel’s bombing of a Hamas office in Qatar. The idea that........

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