On 9 April 2026, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif described Israel as “evil,” “a curse for humanity,” a “cancerous state,” and pronouncing Israel guilty of “genocide.” Less than a week later, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was effusive about the Pakistanis. “The Pakistanis have been incredible mediators throughout this process and we really appreciate their friendship,” she wrote. “They are the only mediator in this negotiation.” On 16 April, President Donald Trump said, “The field marshal has been great. The Prime Minister has been really great in Pakistan so I might go” to a signing ceremony for any deal.
Trump’s comments reflect diplomatic fantasy. It is easy to make a deal; just ask U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, who just short of a century ago, won a Nobel Peace Prize for their agreement to outlaw law. Not to be outdone in naivete, a decade later, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from a meeting with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler promising “peace for our time” and reported he had averted war.
To be fair to Kellogg, Briand, and Chamberlain, Pakistan today is not their equivalent. They negotiated in good faith hampered by naivete; Pakistan’s role is malevolent. Rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan helped Iran establish its nuclear program; now Washington rewards Islamabad for the mess their own corruption created. Nor should Asif ’s outburst surprise. Pakistan is not only among the world’s most antisemitic countries, but it is also one of the most anti-American. The Pakistani government officially labelled the SEAL Team Six’s raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden a “deep disappointment.” Polls showed more than two-thirds of Pakistanis regretted Bin Laden’s death. Over 80% of the calcium ammonium nitrate used by the Taliban to make car bombs and other improvised explosive devices originated in just two Pakistani factories. Pakistan’s support for the Taliban insurgency resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans. If Pakistan has any reach to terror groups and the Islamic Republic, it is because it is a Petri dish for extremist groups, not because Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif or Army Chief Asim Munir seek to trade them for permanent peace.
The notion that Trump’s personal friendship with an American lawyer whom Pakistan once hired as a lobbyist should erase decades of Pakistani malevolence is bizarre yet, by relying on Pakistan to mediate the most acute national security concerns, Trump essentially does the equivalent of hiring a child molester to teach in a kindergarten. Indians should not be surprised, however. The United States increasingly confuses ideological enemies with mediators. Qatar, for example, ingratiates itself to Trump with business contracts and gifts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump, in turn, relied on the Qataris first to broker talks with the Taliban and then with Hamas. Both were disasters. Qatar sponsored a Taliban office in Doha. Rather than bring peace, it enabled the Taliban to launder drug money and purchase weaponry. While mediators promised an end to insurgency and a Taliban role in a broadbased government, Qatari officials instead smoothed the way for the ultimate betrayal of Afghanistan’s elected government and America’s defeat. Qatari officials then celebrated the result as a victory for Islam. The same was true with Hamas. While Qatar was pumping money into Gaza and laundering Hamas’ image, Hamas was planning the 7 October 2023 attacks, after which Qatar pumped money into university campuses and media to erase responsibility for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Trump has fallen into the same trap in Syria. While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promoted the rise of the Islamic State, Trump chose Erdoğan to mediate Syria’s future. The result was laundering as Syria new president Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist with a Rs 900 million bounty. Erdoğan’s price was betrayal of the Syrian Kurds who helped defeat the Islamic State that Turkey created. Today, Al-Sharaa wears a suit, but his forces still throw Kurdish girls off rooftops, slaughter Alawis, and murder Christians and Druze.
Trump likewise relied on the Omanis to mediate with the Houthis yet while Muscat postured and praised Trump, the Omanis helped the Iranians smuggle weaponry to the Houthis.
The narrative in the media from New Delhi to New York that the United States has lost the Iran war is, from a military standpoint, nonsense. In the first hours of the conflict, the Islamic Republic lost its supreme leader, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps lost most of its top commanders. Mojtaba Khamenei has essentially become Schrödinger’s ayatollah, unseen and so neither definitively alive nor dead. The Islamic Republic’s ability to export oil, import petrol, and pay its salaries is crippled. Iran no longer has an air force or navy, and its ability to launch ballistic missiles and drones has declined by 90%.
By relying on Pakistan, however, Trump repeats the mistakes of Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, and Yemen. No country needs to defeat the United States militarily when the U.S. president allows adversaries to mediate on their behalf to craft deals that transform victory into defeat. The result will not only be humiliation for the United States, but also danger of an arrogant and empowered Islamabad that believes Trump has given it broad immunity to continue its terror.
India must be ready militarily but should also ask why Pakistan’s government managed to so roundly outmaneuver the Ministry of External Affairs by positioning itself as a mediator, a role for which India would have been much better suited.
- Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum in Washington, DC.
