Pakistan’s reported role in facilitating renewed communication between Washington and Tehran has done what such moments always do in Islamabad: it has triggered less celebration abroad than introspection at home.

The question is not simply what Pakistan achieved, but whether such a moment would have been possible under the leadership of Imran Khan, or whether it reflects a more pragmatic style of engagement under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir.

In Pakistan, foreign policy rarely stays foreign. It quickly becomes a debate about temperament, trust, and the kind of leadership the state believes it needs.

For Imran Khan, foreign policy was often about drawing lines rather than blurring them. The phrase “absolutely not” became shorthand for a broader instinct: Pakistan should stop being what others need it to be and start being what it chooses to be.

For his supporters, that represented overdue clarity in a system long accustomed to compromise dressed as strategy.

But diplomacy is rarely rewarded for clarity alone. In a region defined by shifting alignments and overlapping crises, rigid positions can narrow the space for quiet manoeuvring. And in Pakistan’s case, it is often that quiet space—not........

© The Friday Times