How Islamabad talks have exposed Pakistan’s anxiety yet again

Pakistan over and over overstates its diplomatic role in regional conflicts whereas grappling with interior contradictions, insecurity, and financial strain that limit its credibility

As many experts had
anticipated, the Islamabad talks between Iran and the US obtain in spite of the entirety failed. The discussions had been broadly praised by Pakistan’s establishment and drew vital attention online. Top Minister Shehbaz Sharif
remarked that from Tokyo to London, and from Casablanca to Kuala Lumpur, media outlets and institutions across the arena had been speaking about Pakistan. Within the intervening time, many netizens expressed satisfaction, claiming—
despite puny evidence—that they had been being “greeted” globally as a “peace-maker” nation.

Doubtless creator Raja Muneeb, in his article
“Pakistan’s role in West Asia: An online of competing dependencies”, aptly observed: “A state that lacks the capacity to absorb the consequences of conflict cannot credibly position itself as a mediator of that conflict.”

Pakistan’s establishment, however, has normally been in the behavior of portraying reactive or defensive strikes as geopolitical excessive ground—whether or no longer in attempting to deflect from setbacks similar to Operation Sindoor, endorsing proposals admire Trump’s Gaza peace idea, or now facilitating dialogue that arguably offers Washington both time or a face-saving exit from a
“Trumpian misadventure”.

Many experts argue that Pakistan modified into no longer an organically evolved say. Some gape its introduction as the final consequence of a particular sequence of historical circumstances, others attribute it to the stress of particular leaders certain to impose their imaginative and prescient, and some even worth clashes of ego among key figures. The Pakistani account, however, continues to leisure firmly on the “two-nation theory”.

Then again, why the necessity for a “two-nation” framework modified into felt handiest after more than a millennium of Muslim presence in South Asia remains advanced to worth. Moreover, it is equally worrying for some to know that India gathered has a greater Muslim population than Pakistan, with Indian Muslims seeing themselves as Indian, right as their Hindu brethrens discontinuance.

Some argue that this contributes to a continual sense of insecurity in Pakistan, prompting habitual efforts to scream its relevance—and, by extension, that of the “two-nation theory”. Here is on the general expressed thru aspirations of leadership in the Islamic world, emphasis on its place as the handiest nuclear-armed Muslim say, or tips similar to an “Islamic NATO”. At the same time, this outlook is on the general linked to a lengthy-lasting sense of contention with India, alongside efforts to compare its diplomatic have an effect on and financial relate in South Asia and on the earth.

In his book Where Borders Bleed, ancient diplomat Rajiv Dogra shares an epic that vividly reflects this mindset. When a Pakistani international minister modified into once requested about his most alive to wish for the length of situation of labor, he reportedly replied with placing bluntness: “If God had been to grant me a wish, I’d demand Him to situation a nuclear bomb in every of my palms… One I’d plunge on Bombay, the lots of on Delhi.”

As creator Utpal Kumar notes in his article
“Islamabad talks had been doomed to fail, however or no longer it is The US’s doublespeak the place the effort lies”, Pakistan emerged in 1947 from a flowery blend of Islamist fervour and British-American geopolitical engineering. From its very inception, he argues, it has carried competing impulses—hunting for to be both modernist and theocratic. In desire to reconciling these contradictions, the say has largely institutionalised them.

This moreover explains why a ‘Mullah In vogue’, ‘Hafiz-e-Quran’, ‘Discipline Marshal’, ‘COAS’, ‘Syed’ Asim Munir, invoked the rhetoric of the ‘two-nation theory’ on April 16, 2025, right a week earlier than the Pulwama attack on April 22, however modified into reportedly
no longer chuffed with Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif calling Israel ‘a curse for humanity’, and has been supporting the Gaza peace idea below the so-called
‘most Zionist’ US president.

Many experts are of the thought that, to manufacture international red meat up and recognition, Pakistan has repeatedly allowed itself to be
a pawn in giant-strength games. The 78-year-oldschool nation believes this offers it very crucial “international relevance”, whereas fuelling jihad in Kashmir and supporting injurious-border terrorism offers relevance to a “say for the navy”. Undergo in mind, getting alive to on The US’s ‘Battle on Horror’ whereas bombing one’s maintain populace whereas double-taking half in Washington concurrently.

Now moreover, the Iran war has introduced the disaster to Pakistan’s doorstep amid soaring prices of gas and meals objects and a
power debt disaster. The Pakistani establishment is yet again making determined attempts to drag itself out of the disaster, whereas meanwhile taking the excessive ground. Amid all this, its “iron brother” China, as ancient diplomat Vivek Katju notes in his article
“Pakistan’s mediation in the Iran war is a idiot rushing the place the wise wretchedness to tread”, is quietly staring at.