Abdul Rehman

The Iran war has returned. The fragile arrangement keeping the guns quiet finally gave way. The United States and Iran traded blows once again, and continue to do so. From the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, U.S. President Donald Trump pronounced the memorandum of understanding finished. The ceasefire, held together by Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s unending efforts, effectively died. For Pakistan, no doubt, this is a disappointing outcome. No country invested more of itself in ending the war. It was Pakistan’s Prime Minister & Field Marshal who brought the two sides back from the brink in April, when the U.S. President had vowed to end an entire civilization; It was Islamabad that had hosted the first direct, high-level engagement between Washington and Tehran since 1979; and it was the “Islamabad” Memorandum of Understanding, signed in June, that finally seemed to promise a durable peace. Through the Field Marshal’s sleepless nights and the Prime Minister shuttling between Gulf and European capitals to hold the coalition together, Pakistan earned praise for being a peacemaker in the world. Now, however, the whole edifice appears to lie in ruins. It is tempting, at this moment, to conclude that our efforts were wasted, that our diplomatic capital and national prestige were invested in a peace that lasted only weeks. There are voices, some of them serious, arguing that Pakistan should never have inserted itself between two nuclear-shadowed powers in the first place; that we should have minded our own considerable troubles and let the great powers settle their own quarrels; that a mediation who fails is left holding nothing but the blame. This is a comfortable argument, but it is not the right one. Let’s first consider what Pakistan’s mediation actually achieved. Because of Pakistan’s efforts, the war did not lead to a civilizational catastrophe. Two governments that had not spoken face to face in nearly half a century sat down together in Pakistan’s capital. You can argue that the framework agreed upon was imperfect and did not last, but it did last long enough to reopen the Strait, calm the oil markets, and give millions of ordinary people across the region some relief. Diplomacy must not be judged on whether a peace lasts forever, but rather the wars it postpones and the escalations it prevents. A broken ceasefire, moreover, is not the same as no ceasefire at all. The channels that Pakistan created will not disappear simply because the fighting has resumed. The trust that the Field Marshal and the Prime Minister built in Tehran, Washington and the Gulf is exactly what will be needed to negotiate the next ceasefire, and there will have to be a next one, because this war can only end at the negotiating table. The only way this progress can get wasted is if Pakistan walks away. The strongest argument for staying the course has nothing to do with the progress made. Rather, it is about survival. The war is not taking place far away. It is in our neighborhood, and the effects are seeping into our home. When the fighting flares, our weekly oil bill jumps from $300 million to nearly $800 million. It wipes out two years of economic progress. It makes our groceries more expensive, our remittances fall. Peace in Iran is not a favour we do for others; it is a matter of national interest. That is the answer to those who counsel retreat. Pakistan cannot afford to stand aside from a war that reaches all the way into our petrol pumps and our grocery bills. A country that pays the price of a conflict has every reason to work for its end. So let the guns roar this week. Pakistan should not fall silent. We should make the calls again, send our envoys again, and remind both Washington and Tehran that the door in Islamabad remains open. A mediator’s work is not finished after one success, nor should it be abandoned after one setback. Peace has broken once; it can be built again. And Pakistan, having done it before, is better placed than anyone to do it a second time.