DESPITE Pakistan’s robust Track 2.0 diplomacy, sustained regional consultations with all major stakeholders, active global cooperation and China’s persistent counsel of restraint to both sides, the third US-Iran war has severely undermined prospects for regional peace and stability as well as the smooth and reliable supply of energy and food. With Iran now officially rejecting a peace agreement and resuming full-scale war, the doves of peace seem to have lost their wings while the vultures of destruction soar ever higher.
According to diplomatic sources and international media, the Iranian government requested a 10-day truce, but Donald Trump rejected it due to complex issues on both sides, leaving the conflict to intensify across multiple fronts. Meanwhile, the widening rift between Iran’s civilian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), coupled with Israel’s powerful lobby, has fuelled an escalating cycle of attacks, causing grave damage to states, communities and enterprises, while holding the GCC and the wider regional and global economies hostage to the expanding machinery of war.
Despite receiving funds from Qatar and the UAE and holding technical negotiations in Switzerland, the IRGC made a strategic blunder by attacking a Qatari LNG vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. The ensuing confrontation with US and other nations’ commercial ships triggered regional and international demands for safe navigation. By violating the mutually agreed Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which guaranteed toll-free passage for 60 days, Iran placed itself under mounting diplomatic, economic and strategic pressure.
The US-Iran war appears to have been deliberately expanded. IRGC strikes on command-and-control, logistics, fuel and military equipment facilities belonging to the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, the attack on a US logistics facility in Kuwait’s Mina Abdullah and the targeting of a US base at Azraq in Jordan, allegedly killing three American soldiers, all point to a dangerous new pattern of war-gaming by the IRGC and its counterparts.
The Strait of Hormuz, which in peacetime carries one-fifth of the world’s daily oil and gas supply, has become a major flashpoint in the US-Iran conflict, unsettling the Middle East and driving up global energy prices. Equally alarming is Iran’s signalling that it could use the Houthis in Yemen to block the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, a move that would severely disrupt regional and global energy supplies, open a new front against Washington and place two of the world’s most critical maritime energy corridors at simultaneous risk.
As a result, the Arabian/Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East have witnessed colossal destruction and massive collateral damage, while the trust deficit has soared to unprecedented heights. Iran’s recent attacks, whether on the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq or, to some extent, Saudi Arabia, are costing it the war of narrative, even if the targets were US military bases or installations. Its strikes on Syria, combined with Saudi bombardment of Sana’a, have opened a new front in the war, with grave risks of wider regional and trans-regional spillover.
In the recent past, Qatar and the UAE reportedly paid almost ten billion dollars to the Iranian government, demonstrating their willingness to foster regional peace and stability. Yet Iran, under the IRGC’s influence, has squandered the chance for working relations, at least in the near term. Qatar has already dissociated itself from the mediator role; Oman has voiced strong displeasure over Iran’s attacks on GCC states; and Pakistan has conveyed its deep annoyance over Iran’s attacks on Saudi Arabia, calling them a red line. Consequently, Iran’s room for regional manoeuvre is shrinking further.
The Iranian government and the IRGC must recognize that geographic proximity and economic interdependence with the GCC will endure long after the war ends. A face-saving approach geared toward regional reconciliation, rather than regional aggression, should become their guiding principle.
According to US Central Command (CENTCOM), the US military has completed its 13th consecutive night of strikes against Iran, targeting military logistics infrastructure and other sites. These included surveillance sites, military logistics hubs, underground weapons storage and maritime capabilities. The deployment of US fighter aircraft, aerial drones and warships alongside other assets signals little prospect of a breakthrough anytime soon.
In summary, the only viable way forward is the reactivation of mediation, sincere efforts at regional reconciliation, dissociation from proxies and wise statesmanship on both sides. The roles of Pakistan, China, Russia, Qatar and Türkiye are critical in reducing enmity and building corridors of trust, respect and mutual accommodation. The US must avoid any further justification to sabotage other countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity for the sake of world peace and stability.
—The writer is Executive Director: The Centre for Knowledge and Public Policy.
