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Pakistan’s heyday as US–Iran mediator is a thin veil over its domestic crises

Field Marshal Asim Munir is riding high on Pakistan’s mediation of US–Iran talks, but the country remains beset by economic crisis, a rapacious elite, IMF-imposed austerity and violent insurgencies

By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
Pakistan’s heyday as US–Iran mediator is a thin veil over its domestic crises
Asim Munir (left) receives the US vice president, J D Vance (centre), for talks with Iran in April 2026. Playing mediator between the United States and Iran has given Munir and Pakistan the global limelight, but a reckoning with the country’s deep domestic crises can only be deferred for so long. Photo: IMAGO / Xinhua
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AS POSTCOLONIAL NATION-BUILDING vanity projects go, Islamabad is anything but unique. Like Brasilia, Chandigarh, Abuja and Putrajaya, Islamabad was designed to be free of the encumbrances of the past, immune to the destitution of the post-independence present. Nestled in the scenic Margalla Hills, boasting grand modernist architecture, Islamabad was the brainchild of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s first military dictator, who ruled between 1958 and 1969. This was at the height of the Cold War, when Pakistan enjoyed the good graces of Washington DC as a crucial bulwark against communism in southwest Asia alongside Kemalist Turkey and the Iran of Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since then, with Pakistan falling in and out of Washington DC’s favour as the geopolitical winds have shifted. Historical contingencies notwithstanding, few could have foreseen that Ayub Khan’s beloved Islamabad would in 2026 become one of the world’s most watched capitals, with Pakistan’s second-ever Field Marshal playing mediator-in-chief in talks between the United States and Iran.

The Serena Hotel has always been a gathering place for Pakistan’s rich and powerful – and, indeed, for the rich and powerful from beyond its shores. It was here that the delegations led by the US vice president, J D Vance, and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, met over two days in April to try and negotiate an end to yet another war thrust upon the Persian Gulf by Washington DC and Tel Aviv. The Serena’s owner, the renowned global plutocrat Aga Khan V, picked up the tab. The meet ended without an agreement, and for many days afterwards it was rumoured that the two sides would return to thrash out a compromise, but they never did. After more back-and-forth and hostilities, a broad 14-point “Memorandum of Understanding” was signed remotely in June, deescalating though not fully ending the conflict. Iranian and US delegations convened in Geneva on 21 June to start working out a more detailed permanent peace deal, with Pakistani mediators in  attendance.