PAKISTANIS may soon find that a war thousands of miles away can cost them dearly at home. Petrol at Rs700 a litre or even Rs1,000, is not a price forecast that can responsibly be made without knowing the duration of the conflict, global oil prices and the government’s tax and subsidy decisions. But it captures a genuine danger. The longer the confrontation between Iran, the United States and Israel continues, the greater the risk that military escalation will translate into economic hardship for countries with little capacity to absorb another energy shock.
The Strait of Hormuz lies at the heart of this danger. Roughly one-fifth of global oil con-sumption passed through the waterway before the conflict, making it one of the most impor-tant chokepoints in the international energy system. Any sustained threat to commercial shipping can raise freight and insurance costs, unsettle oil markets and disrupt supplies even without a complete blockade. For Iran, threatening maritime traffic offers a means of imposing costs on adversaries with superior conventional military capabilities. Yet the ability to disrupt global markets is not the same as the ability to compel a stronger opponent to accept political demands.
This is the strategic dilemma Tehran appears unwilling to confront. National resistance has its place, particularly when a country believes its sovereignty is under attack. But neither courage nor a willingness to endure suffering can substitute for a realistic assessment of the balance of power. The United States possesses overwhelming advantages in air power, surveillance, logistics and long-range precision weapons. Iran can retaliate and make the conflict costly for its adversaries, but it cannot assume that inflicting pain will force Washington to retreat. If every escalation invites a more destructive response, Iran risks suffering mounting damage without securing its principal objectives.
The danger becomes greater when a country mistakes diplomatic alignment for a security guarantee. China and Russia have reasons to oppose aspects of American policy and maintain relations with Tehran. Their interests are not identical to Iran’s, nor does cooperation automatically entail a commitment to fight the United States on Iran’s behalf. Beijing must consider its global trade and energy security, while Moscow must weigh its own military and diplomatic priorities. Both may seek to constrain American influence without accepting the costs of direct confrontation.
Claims that Washington has struck a grand bargain with Beijing over maritime routes or with Moscow over Ukraine in exchange for abandoning Iran should not be treated as established facts without credible evidence. Nevertheless, the broader lesson remains. Great powers negotiate according to their own interests and their understandings can alter the calculations of smaller partners. Tehran would be unwise to base its survival on the assumption that its allies will intervene when the costs become prohibitive.
Pakistan has already begun to feel the consequences. The suspension of commercial trade through the Gabd-Rimdan and Taftan crossings with Iran disrupted the movement of goods and threatened supplies of essential commodities, particularly liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). In Balochistan, the price of a 12-kilogram LPG cylinder reportedly rose from around Rs.4,500 to Rs7,000, while more than 4,000 tonnes of LPG had reportedly been entering Pa-kistan daily through the Gabd-Rimdan route before the disruption. Such interruptions demonstrate how quickly regional instability can reach Pakistani households, raising the cost of cooking fuel and placing an additional burden on families already struggling with inflation.
The consequences extend beyond LPG. Higher crude oil prices increase Pakistan’s import bill, put pressure on foreign exchange reserves and raise transport and electricity generation costs. The poorest households, which spend a disproportionate share of their income on es-sentials, bear the heaviest burden. Petrol at Rs.700 or Rs.1,000 a litre remains a hypothetical scenario, not an established forecast. But a prolonged conflict could push Pakistan towards another cycle of inflation, fiscal pressure and declining purchasing power. The country must diversify its energy supplies where feasible, strengthen emergency preparedness and pursue diplomacy to prevent further disruption. Its vulnerability reflects not only external shocks but also years of inadequate energy diversification and limited capacity to absorb them.
Ultimately, Iran’s predicament illustrates the difference between endurance and strategy. A country may withstand considerable hardship and still lose strategically if its leaders cannot define achievable objectives or recognize when continued confrontation ceases to serve the national interest. Saadi Shirazi’s enduring wisdom offers a useful reminder that courage without prudence can become costly folly. Confronting a stronger adversary requires resolve, sound judgment and an understanding of one’s limits. Resistance should protect a nation’s future, not condemn its people to indefinite suffering. Faith may sustain people through hardship, but it cannot absolve political leaders of their responsibility to prevent avoidable destruction.
Nor can appeals to sacrifice replace a credible strategy for peace. If Iran’s leaders continue to treat every compromise as defeat, they risk turning resistance into a burden on the very population they seek to defend. The United States, meanwhile, must recognize that military superiority alone cannot settle every political dispute and that a war without a credible diplomatic destination can produce consequences far beyond its intended targets. For Pakistan, the lesson is immediate. It may have little influence over the missiles striking Iran or the calculations made in Washington, Moscow and Beijing, but it cannot afford to ignore their consequences.
When great powers compete and regional leaders refuse to reconsider their choices, ordinary citizens pay the price. The measure of statesmanship is not how long a nation can endure a war, but whether its leaders possess the wisdom to prevent an avoidable catastrophe.
—The writer is PhD in Political Science from Griffith University Brisbane and visiting faculty at QAU Islamabad. ([email protected] and on X @zafarkhansafdar.)
