Global Watch | Why Iran Should Be Wary Of Pakistan’s Double Game

Tehran’s safest bet should be to not rely on a neighbour whose ‘double game’ could prove as destabilising as any external adversary

Iran witnessed strong protests late last December due to skyrocketing inflation and steeply devaluing currency. The protests quickly morphed from economic grievance to deadly anti-government riots and political crisis, drawing sharp warnings from US President Donald Trump, who has publicly supported Iranian protestors.

Trump warned the Iranian government against resorting to extreme violence on protestors and has since weighed military options against Tehran. While Iran’s neighbours like Turkey and Qatar and also its regional competitor, Saudi Arabia, have urged restraint and dialogue, Islamabad’s response has been emblematic of the ambiguity that has come to define its regional posture since decades. Pakistan has once again shown that its foreign policy is rooted less in principle than in opportunism, its diplomacy shaped by shifting interests, transactional alliances and a deep-seated reliance on regional instability to prop up its own power structures.

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On one level, Pakistan offered its support to the Iranian government emphasising opposition to “any foreign interference in Iran’s internal affairs" and called for diplomacy and dialogue, including revival of nuclear deal, as the way ahead. On January 28, Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar spoke with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi and “underscored that dialogue and diplomacy remain the only viable way forward." Yet behind this diplomatic veneer lies a far more complex and contradictory strategy that Tehran should be wary........

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