The 2026 conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran has moved into a stage characterised less by sustained open warfare than by a protracted contest of endurance alongside active diplomatic positioning.

Following the joint U.S.–Israeli strikes of 28 February under Operation Epic Fury, reportedly aimed at Iranian military installations, nuclear-linked infrastructure, and senior leadership that included the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the region has experienced extensive fatalities, large-scale displacement, and significant disruption to global energy flows.

A conditional ceasefire emerged around 8 April, with mediation largely conducted through Pakistani channels. Implementation, however, remains partial: the Strait of Hormuz is largely closed, and a reciprocal U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports has been in effect since mid-April.

By late April 2026, direct negotiations had not resumed in Islamabad, although indirect communication continued.

The recent travel pattern of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s meetings in Islamabad with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, and Army Chief FM Asim Munir, followed by visits to Muscat and Moscow, illustrates a shuttle-style process.

Pakistan functions as the primary conduit, transmitting positions in the absence of face-to-face leader-level engagement. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner did not make the anticipated visit after President Trump cited insufficient Iranian movement.

Iran has reportedly conveyed proposals, including a three-stage framework that prioritises cessation of aggression and resolution of the Hormuz situation before turning to nuclear questions.

Pakistan’s mediation is consequential in light of its long border with Iran, its management of Afghan refugee flows, and its reliance on Gulf shipping for energy supplies, which together give Islamabad a direct interest in containment.

This context also reflects Pakistan’s regional leverage and the practical value of its diplomatic channels.

The military phase reportedly opened with nearly 900 strikes in the initial hours, targeting command structures, missile-related facilities, and air defences.

Iranian retaliation included missile and drone attacks on Israeli targets, U.S. bases in Gulf states, and locations in Lebanon, where exchanges involving Hezbollah further increased casualties.

Strikes occurring during putative diplomatic windows further strengthen Iranian interpretations that leverage, rather than negotiation, drives U.S. behaviour

Strikes occurring during putative diplomatic windows further strengthen Iranian interpretations that leverage, rather than negotiation, drives U.S. behaviour

Reports of civilian deaths, including casualties from a strike near a girls’ school in Minab, complicated claims of precision.

The killing of Khamenei constituted a marked escalation, crossing a political threshold that appears to have consolidated successor leadership under Mojtaba Khamenei while narrowing prospects for trust-building.

The maritime arena has become the central pressure point. Iran curtailed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz after the strikes, and the United States imposed a blockade on vessels travelling to or from Iranian ports.

The resulting contraction in shipping through a corridor that typically carries roughly 20% of global oil has raised oil prices, increased insurance premiums, and forced the use of costlier, slower routes.

For Asian importers such as Pakistan, these dynamics translate into higher import bills and inflationary pressures under constrained fiscal conditions.

Neither set of restrictions has produced rapid compliance; instead, they have intensified mutual accusations of ceasefire violations and elevated the risk of naval incidents.

Iran has reportedly proposed reopening the strait in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade, with nuclear-related issues deferred to subsequent stages.

Washington has maintained that any durable arrangement must include verifiable limits on enrichment and reductions in proxy activity.

The 11 April direct talks in Islamabad, which reportedly involved high-level delegations and achieved procedural progress, were stalled over these substantive divergences.

Nonetheless, continued indirect exchanges via Pakistani intermediaries suggest ongoing engagement, albeit without implying assured progress.

A balanced appraisal requires accounting for concerns on multiple sides. Iran’s nuclear activities, missile development, and support for armed groups have long unsettled regional actors and contributed to cycles of retaliation.

The 2018 U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, combined with oscillation between pressure and engagement, has reinforced scepticism in Tehran regarding U.S. commitments.

Strikes occurring during putative diplomatic windows further strengthen Iranian interpretations that leverage, rather than negotiation, drives U.S. behaviour.

The United States, meanwhile, confronts a strategic problem: tactical degradation of Iranian capabilities has not translated into strategic acquiescence or regime collapse.

Although proxy networks have been weakened, they remain active, and dispersed nuclear expertise persists even where facilities have been set back.

Pakistan’s role draws on prior experience in balancing relationships with Washington, Tehran, and Gulf capitals.

FM Munir and PM Sharif have reportedly hosted messages, coordinated with Oman and other actors, and promoted pragmatic steps such as humanitarian access and phased maritime de-escalation.

This posture is better understood as interest-driven risk management than as detached neutrality, grounded in energy security, border stability, and efforts to limit spillovers of radicalisation.

Successive Pakistani governments have also come to recognise that external interventions across the broader region can generate domestic blowback.

Maintaining channels when direct contact falters offers a comparatively low-cost way to manage these risks without binding Islamabad to a specific end state.

Pakistan’s position at the intersection of South and West Asia encourages a focus on practical management of trade routes, borders, and economic recovery rather than ideological contestation

Pakistan’s position at the intersection of South and West Asia encourages a focus on practical management of trade routes, borders, and economic recovery rather than ideological contestation

The current reliance on indirect diplomacy underscores structural features of contemporary Middle East crisis management.

Multiple intermediaries, Pakistan, Oman, and Russia, reduce the intensity of bilateral confrontation, but they also tend to lengthen timelines and complicate verification.

Iran’s engagement with Moscow signals both diplomatic optionality and an effort to avoid isolation.

For the United States, domestic politics and alliance commitments, particularly regarding Israel, shape negotiating boundaries.

The resulting process moves incrementally and remains vulnerable to maritime miscalculation or leadership-driven shifts in posture.

Blockades and maximalist demands have well-established limits.

Historical experience suggests that maritime sieges rarely secure rapid capitulation from states that frame compliance as existential; more often, they internationalise disputes, impose costs on third parties, and consolidate domestic resolve.

Here, the dual restrictions affecting Hormuz have already indicated Iranian capacity to absorb pressure while generating external economic spillovers.

A more calibrated strategy sequencing limited sanctions or maritime relief against verifiable pauses in sensitive activities may provide a clearer test of whether incremental concessions can accumulate into stability.

From Islamabad’s standpoint, the relevant lesson is pragmatic.

Overreach in demands or responses often extends standoffs rather than shortening them.

Power asymmetries remain salient, yet geography, economic interdependence, and local agency constrain what coercion can realistically achieve.

Restored shipping lanes better serve Pakistan’s interests, contain proxy tensions, and reduce refugee and security spillovers than alignment with any singular victory narrative.

Continued facilitation, even in a limited form, preserves space for partial arrangements that may later support resolution of more contested issues.

As Araghchi concludes consultations in Moscow and messages continue to pass through Pakistani channels, the diplomatic picture remains fluid.

Iran’s reported three-stage proposal—immediate de-escalation, then Hormuz arrangements, with nuclear issues deferred—offers one potential sequencing architecture.

Near-term momentum will hinge on whether Washington engages this structure or continues to insist on bundling all issues into a single package.

For mediators, the immediate objective is to prevent reversion to overt conflict while recognising that durable agreements typically require mutual recognition of vulnerabilities: Iran’s exposure to sustained economic pressure and U.S. interests in avoiding indefinite entanglement and persistent market volatility.

The 2026 crisis also reflects a recurrent pattern in regional politics.

Military force can reshape conditions on the ground, but translating battlefield effects into political order generally requires negotiation that incorporates the other side’s security concerns.

Pakistan’s position at the intersection of South and West Asia encourages a focus on practical management of trade routes, borders, and economic recovery rather than ideological contestation.

Within that framework, sustained, low-visibility facilitation, however gradual, serves functions that pressure or disengagement cannot readily substitute.

Whether the coming weeks produce renewed direct engagement or merely stabilise a fragile ceasefire, the underlying dynamics arguably favour measured compromise over prolonged contests of resolve.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is likely to resume at some point, but the terms and sequencing of that reopening will shape regional trajectories for years.

For all parties, including observers in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the central challenge is to differentiate leverage that yields concrete outcomes from leverage that primarily increases the eventual costs of settlement.

© The Friday Times