Pakistan seizes the peace space India lost

India’s feebleness in the international arena was clearly constrained by its loyalty to the US and Israel, its election cycle, bureaucratic risk averseness, and its compromised global image

The world should be grateful to Pakistan and China for facilitating the fragile ceasefire in the United States-Israel war on Iran. While Pakistan emerged as the frontline, visible facilitator, reports suggest that China was the behind-the-scenes force that encouraged Iran to accept negotiations.

US President Donald Trump has also acknowledged that China played a key role in getting Iran to the negotiating table. However, the future course of the fragile ceasefire develops, Pakistan’s success in projecting itself as a global peace facilitator cannot be denied.

How did this come about? Pakistan demonstrated tactical agility by engaging Washington and Tehran simultaneously. As an Islamic country, it had credibility in the Muslim nations of West Asia. It also shares a border with Iran, as well as deep cultural, religious, and economic ties. Any escalation threatened its security, energy supplies, and trade through the Strait of Hormuz. Its unique geopolitical position and the ability to balance ties with Iran, the Gulf countries, and the US, allowed it to leverage its military credibility and backchannel diplomacy for facilitating peace.

India’s response to the ceasefire has been mealy-mouthed, welcoming it in very general terms — emphasising dialogue, restraint, and diplomacy — without any appreciation of Pakistan’s mediatory role. The Narendra Modi government sees Pakistan’s peace initiative within a zero-sum-game mindset, particularly when both countries vie for global influence, more so, in West Asia.

Acknowledging Pakistan’s role would have impacted India’s diplomatic positioning adversely as the leader of the Global South and as a Vishwaguru. It would also mean accepting its complete failure as the current chairman of BRICS, as New Delhi did not even formally urge for peace or condemn the unprovoked attack on Iran, which is a member-state of the bloc.

Unlike India, Pakistan’s leaders recognised an opportunity and proactively made appeals to the US to delay air strikes and allow space for talks. The world welcomed Pakistan’s initiative because a ceasefire would stabilise the oil markets and prevent the war from spreading. It also suited Pakistan’s partner China, working behind the scenes with Iran, pressuring it to opt for negotiations as it has stakes in maintaining regional calm.

Trump, who has openly displayed his fondness for Pakistani military and political leadership, decided to use Pakistan’s statements to manoeuvre himself out of the difficult situation he found himself in. Iran also trusted Pakistan enough to convey counter-proposals to the US.

In the bargain, Pakistan showed its risk-taking ability by engaging Iran, which could have upset Saudi Arabia, with whom it has a mutual defence agreement. If the war had spread to engulf Saudi Arabia, then Riyadh might have invoked the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement of 2025. That would have put Pakistan in a dilemma and shattered its image of neutrality, aligning it with the Gulf nations against Iran. It was essential for Pakistan, therefore, to ensure that the war did not spread so that it was not confronted with the awkwardness of having to decline Riyadh’s request for military defence.

Its mediation efforts also risked sparking off sectarian violence domestically, if it was seen to be leaning towards one side. However, even if its role in stabilising the situation remains uncertain, there is no doubt that it has carved out a strategic role for itself by trying to stabilise the crisis.

India, on the other hand, lost the mediation space because of several factors. Primary being its strategic tilt towards the US and Israel. Iran initially urged India, as BRICS chairman, to facilitate diplomacy over war. Even as India hesitated, China, along with Pakistan, seized the initiative and sidelined India, exposing the contradictions in Modi’s foreign policy.

Modi’s strategic partnership with the US branded India as aligned rather than neutral. Also, India has deep ties with Israel in defence and technology co-operation, which includes co-development of missile systems and intelligence sharing. Iran, meanwhile, would not have forgotten that India reduced oil imports under US pressure.

Even after the war started, Modi hesitated to condemn the US and Israel for starting an irrational war. India’s statements were limited to general appeals for peace and the need to ensure freedom of movement through the Strait of Hormuz. These factors may have eroded whatever little faith Iran might have had in India becoming a facilitator for peace.

India, in effect, has been hobbled by Modi’s personalised diplomacy. His oft-declared closeness to Trump (now, much less on display) and the Israeli prime minister contradicts any efforts to project India as the ‘voice of the Global South’, undermining expectations that India can represent a multipolar point of view in times of global crises.

Domestic issues have assumed a priority for Modi, making him delegate foreign policy to others at this crucial moment. The ongoing Assembly polls and Modi’s electoral campaigns there consume an enormous amount of his political bandwidth, leaving little space for engagement with foreign policy. Modi was busy hunting for ghuspathiyas (infiltrators) in West Bengal and Assam while the world was coming apart around everyone’s ears.

India’s foreign policy was left to a technocratic foreign minister whose style of functioning is bureaucratic, cautious, and pragmatic. The absence of diplomatic deftness came in the way of India positioning itself as a mediator in the current crisis. Lacking any political ballast, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s diplomacy was limited to the routine — a few well-publicised phone calls and issuing cautious statements. He appeared unable to execute any innovative political gambit, and could not offer any Indian role in peace-making in West Asia, even though BRICS was readily available.

There was, therefore, no political initiative to counterbalance the efforts of Pakistan and China. In an all-party meeting where the Opposition flagged Pakistan’s offer to mediate in the conflict, Jaishankar crushed suggestions of India initiating any peace-making moves by declaring that India was not a “dalal” (broker) nation to play the middle-man in global geopolitics!

India’s feebleness in the international arena was clearly constrained by its loyalty to the US and Israel, its election cycle, bureaucratic risk averseness of its foreign policy framers, and its compromised global image. The Iran crisis has demonstrated, yet again, that Indian diplomacy increasingly lacks vision and seems to be merely reactive and transactional.

(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.