When Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar recently called Pakistan a dalal, or fixer, for acting as a messenger between the United States and Iran, the insult betrayed a profound sense of marginalization. In a sense, it was also an involuntary acknowledgment of reality: In U.S. President Donald Trump’s eyes, being a fixer is not a mark of shame but a badge of utility.

Trump boasts of his ability to secure the best deals in history, and he has found in Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir exactly the sort of interlocutor that he likes—a hard-power operator with direct access to the White House and a willingness to sell himself as useful. This has left Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an awkward position, relegated to receiving a single phone call from Trump about the crisis in the Middle East (with Elon Musk listening in on the line).

Islamabad has recently cast itself as a neutral mediator between Washington and Tehran. On March 29, it hosted talks on the war with Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Then, Pakistan’s foreign minister rushed to Beijing for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, after which the two countries released a five-part peace plan. Due to a lack of concrete outcomes so far, Pakistan is framing this incipient process as a practical step to widen the communication channel between the two sides.

Pakistan’s role as a bridge between the United States and Iran mirrors its facilitation of the U.S. opening to China in 1971. If Pakistan can talk to Iran, host meetings with three Middle Eastern powers, and preserve ties with China—all while maintaining its relationship with the Trump administration—that marks a humiliating failure for Modi, whose foreign policy has long sought to diplomatically isolate Islamabad.

Pakistan has outperformed India by manufacturing diplomatic relevance despite its own internal problems and risks of failure as an interlocutor, starting with overpromising and underdelivering. This moment highlights the fragility of the U.S.-India relationship and underscores New Delhi’s poor standing in its extended neighborhood. As India remains tethered to the domestic political narrative of aspiring to global leadership, it is being bypassed in the real corridors of power.

---

Pakistan facilitated its role in a series of high-stakes interlocutions to end the Iran war first by leveraging its unique position as a trusted intermediary. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Munir maintained direct and separate backchannels to relay sensitive messages between Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, while communicating with other global leaders.

The talks in Islamabad on March 29 underpinned this effort, as Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia formed a committee to support a cease-fire and secured a deal with Iran to allow Pakistani ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This recent flurry of diplomacy seems to have elevated Pakistan from a so-called basket-case country to a state recognized for its efforts to secure regional peace.

The shift comes after years of Islamabad being sidelined by previous U.S. presidents, as well as a push by Munir to be seen as such a regional power. Pakistan has not only deepened its ties with China but has also formalized its new strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia, all while finding common ground with Iran regarding cooperation on action against Baloch separatists.

This multidirectional diplomacy suggests that Islamabad is trying to reprise its role from 1971, when it helped secure U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing. To do so, Pakistan leveraged its geography, military channels, and status as an intermediary between two sides with no contact with one another toward a larger diplomatic purpose. The bold move altered the course of Cold War geopolitics.

The destination today is not China but a U.S.-Iran rapprochement—and the Pakistani military establishment is once again at the forefront. However, Pakistan’s mediation is built on a brittle foundation. Its diplomatic rise is tied disproportionately to one man, Munir, as well as to a White House that rewards theater, access, and tactical usefulness. Pakistan is not being embraced because its institutions are strong or its economy is resilient; it is simply available.

Any role as mediator between hostile powers exposes Pakistan to retaliation, suspicion, and the possibility of being blamed by one side for the failure of talks or by the other for extracting too much mileage from access. Any talks will have to be indirect, with Pakistani officials shuttling between the two delegations. The very position that creates visibility will also make Pakistan the bearer of bad news when talks collapse—and that remains a distinct possibility.

Pakistan’s domestic problems do not make its diplomacy impossible, but whether these vulnerabilities make the current initiative too risky or simply unsustainable is the central question for Islamabad.

Pakistan’s economy remains fragile, its military establishment still dominates foreign policy in ways that limit civilian officials’ capacity to negotiate quickly, and its political system is hardly stable enough to support a long-term strategic pivot. It also shares a long border with Iran and is determined to avoid being dragged into the war by Saudi Arabia under their recent mutual defense pact.

These challenges do not diminish the fact that Pakistan has successfully broken the diplomatic quarantine that Modi worked so hard to impose. The brief military conflict between India and Pakistan last May seemed to trigger this shift, as Islamabad managed to turn the crisis into leverage by allowing Trump to claim credit for a cease-fire and nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, a sullen Modi insisted the cease-fire decision was strictly his own.

This exchange marked the beginning of a broader strategic reversal in which Pakistan stopped looking isolated and India started looking exposed. Trump imposed high tariffs on Indian goods and placed restrictions (that are currently lifted) on its purchases of Russian crude oil. Images of undocumented immigrants being sent back to India from the United States shattered Modi’s claim of a special friendship with Trump. U.S. officials have publicly stated that the United States is not going to repeat its past “mistakes” with China by facilitating India’s rise.

In off-the-record briefings, others have said that India should not expect the United States to help if there is another border crisis with China, as it did in 2020. The Trump administration has also signaled its disinterest in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which was supposed to be the cornerstone of U.S.-India cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. The strategic alliance that New Delhi mistook for an enduring commitment has proved transient.

The realization that India is not as indispensable to the American project as it once believed is a difficult pill for it to swallow. Trump seems willing to recalibrate its preferences in the region based on immediate tactical needs. If Munir can deliver a deal with Iran or provide a stable platform for U.S. interests in South Asia, Trump will not hesitate to reward him at Modi’s expense. India now faces the prospect of a more confident Pakistan backed by an array of allies, while its own strategic options are narrowing.

Of course, the danger for Pakistan is that in the court of a transactional leader like Trump, the distance between a favored intermediary and a discarded asset is remarkably short. If this mediation fails, Munir and Sharif might find themselves recast as the villains.

---

For more than a decade, Modi has aimed to render Pakistan diplomatically irrelevant. The logic was simple: If India could globalize its economy, deepen its partnerships with the West, and dominate the rhetorical narrative of a responsible rising power, then Pakistan would be pushed to the margins. The current situation, however, shows how Modi’s foreign policy prioritized domestic narratives over the harsh realities of international power dynamics.

India has long positioned itself as the aspiring power that the world must listen to when it comes to a multipolar Asia, but its inability to influence the U.S.-Iran dynamic while Pakistan tries to take center stage suggests otherwise. It underscores how the strategic relationship between the United States and India has always been more about shared anxieties regarding China than about shared values or deep-seated trust.

At the start of the Iran war, Modi chose to back Israel and thus the United States—positioning New Delhi out of a role as a credible arbiter. As a result, it has been compelled to make requests by phone to Tehran to allow ships carrying cooking gas to India to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Pakistan is now being treated as a credible conduit in the Middle East, where India once hoped to expand its own equities.

All these developments are awkward for Modi, who presents India as a bridge between the global south and major powers, a country that others must consult if they want a serious view of the emerging order. If India can’t even maintain its standing in its extended neighborhood, then these assertions ring follow.

Furthermore, the emergence of a middle-power bloc consisting of Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—packing three of the Middle East’s biggest armies, nuclear weapons, and financial heft—represents a significant challenge to Indian interests. These are early days, and the bloc possesses the collective diplomatic and economic weight to bypass traditional power centers. For India, which has always preferred bilateral engagements, the rise of such a group worryingly suggests a future where actors who are not aligned with New Delhi’s vision shape the regional order.

Ultimately, the real embarrassment for India is not that Pakistan has become more active. It is that Munir is being welcomed in capitals where Modi once expected to be consulted, if not deferred to. The Indian leader must sit with an uncomfortable realization: Pakistan is still there, still annoying, still unstable, and yet also suddenly more useful to the powers that matter in this moment. India is being outperformed in the practical business of regional crisis management.

The irony is that Pakistan’s new role does not negate its vulnerabilities. The 1971 moment is a testament to the importance of geography and the military’s centrality to Pakistani statecraft. In a fragmented world, even weak states can acquire leverage given an opportunity. India’s problem is that it thought that its nuclear-armed yet fragile neighbor could be ignored and isolated. Pakistan, for all its weaknesses, has shown that relevance can be manufactured amid conflict.

India cannot afford to disregard this jolt at a time of great geopolitical change. For Modi, that should be a wake-up call to rethink the fundamentals of his foreign policy, not an excuse for his minister to use pejoratives against Pakistan.