BY offering a new set of proposals to Donald Trump, Iran has shifted the debate on the emerging global order into Washington’s court.
The central question is whether the United States will engage through diplomacy to preserve global peace and international rule of law or whether it will allow tensions to escalate further, deepening divisions in an already fragmented world system. With fragile stability still holding, both Iran and the United States retain the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough.
Iran’s reported proposals, conveyed through Pakistan’s mediation, focus on opening up the Persian Gulf for expanded global economic activity in cooperation with Gulf States. Within the framework of international maritime law, such an arrangement is presented as a pathway to stability, ensuring trade flows through strategic waterways while avoiding conflict. In this vision, the Persian Gulf becomes a shared economic corridor rather than a contested zone, embedded within shifting trade routes across Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific and Arctic regions.
A key element in this evolving framework is the potential role of Pakistan in sponsoring a United Nations resolution aimed at guaranteeing long-term peace between the United States and Iran. Such a deal could recognize Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy programme under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, aligning it with other Non-Proliferation Treaty members. In this scenario, both Washington and Tehran could claim diplomatic success, with Iran reintegrated into the global economy and tensions reduced through institutional mechanisms rather than confrontation.
Supporters argue that such an agreement would help stabilize the global economy, restore investor confidence and reduce the cost of living by easing geopolitical disruptions. It could also create space for broader UN engagement on unresolved conflicts, including Palestine, Kashmir and Ukraine, while discouraging proxy tensions across multiple regions.
Iran has also introduced a controversial “reparation levy” on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, intended to finance reconstruction and offset wartime losses. Payments in multiple currencies, including BRICS-linked systems, reflect an attempt to bypass traditional financial structures. Proposals to extend international compensation mechanisms to conflict zones such as Palestine and Kashmir further underscore the attempt to link economic justice with geopolitical restructuring.
Meanwhile, shifting power centres led by China and Russia are advancing alternative visions of global order through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative and broader strategic agreements on sovereignty and development, increasingly seen as counterweights to Western-led alliances and sanctions regimes. At the same time, US policy in West Asia is viewed by critics as testing control over global chokepoints, from maritime routes to financial systems, while Iran’s response has compelled multiple powers to reassess the balance between coercion and cooperation in an increasingly contested global landscape.
Pakistan’s diplomatic role is framed as pivotal, recalling its historic facilitation of US–China engagement in the 1970s and today once again positioning it as a potential intermediary in easing US–Iran tensions and reopening pathways for global economic cooperation. Ultimately, Iran’s diplomatic outreach is portrayed as placing responsibility on the United States to decide whether it will uphold a rules-based global system or drift further into confrontation, with the outcome expected to significantly shape the contours of the emerging world order.
—The writer is senior political analyst based in Islamabad.
