With Pakistan emerging, improbably, as the convening ground for high-stakes Middle East diplomacy this weekend, India’s response has carried the unmistakable taste of sour grapes.
Islamabad must be the unlikeliest city in the world for peace talks and the Pakistan government and army, the unlikeliest hosts to bring adversaries together and steer the conversation in a direction the world would welcome.
In fact, the joke doing the rounds in Islamabad is: will Field Marshal Asim Munir be the first military man ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize? In normal times, that might have seemed absurd. But now US Vice President J.D. Vance has flown into Islamabad with a cavalcade of menacing black SUVs. This former cantonment town, now Pakistan’s capital, has seen its share of terrorist attacks.
On the eve of the talks, a show of strength only reinforced the improbability of it all. Pakistan sent three fighter jets to escort the Iranian delegation into Islamabad. It was a pointed signal to potential Israeli assassins, but it also underlined that the delegation was flying into a country where Wild West rules still sometimes shadow normalcy.
Islamabad shuts down for peace talks
The city itself has been almost completely shut down. Local holidays were declared on April 9 and 10. Citizens took the hint and stayed home. Streets are empty. The Red Zone, housing key government offices, has been sealed off with containers and guarded by around 10,000 military personnel.
At the same time, Pakistan has offered visas on arrival to delegates and media, though the absence of direct India-Pakistan flights makes it unclear whether Indian journalists will be able to attend.
And yet, this is undeniably a moment of glory for Pakistan, perhaps like never before. Khurram Husain, a senior journalist at Dawn, not known for hyperbole, was ecstatic about his country’s peacemaking role. “I have waited many years, decades, to write these words,” he said. “Today, I feel proud to be a Pakistani. Today, my country stands out among the comity of nations as a peacemaker of historic proportions. This is, quite possibly, the single biggest day in the life of our country.”
The tone may sound exuberant, but the scale of the moment is real. There has never been a global political event on this scale in Pakistan before.
From the American side, the delegation is led by Vance, accompanied by Donald Trump’s special advisor Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner. This may not be a flawless team, but it is what Washington has chosen to field (Kushner's usually more interested in doing real estate deals in the world's troublespots).
It is also worth noting that no US President has visited Pakistan in years. Joe Biden last went in 2011 as vice president.
The Iranian side is necessarily more low-key, given that many of its senior leaders have been targeted and killed by Israel.
Certainly, Pakistan realised it could play the peacemaker role early. As soon as missiles were fired on February 28, foreign minister Ishaq Dar began working the phones from Riyadh where he was attending an Islamic world conference. Back in Islamabad, Field Marshal Munir reached out to Washington and made his pitch to Trump, who regards him highly and calls him his “favourite field marshal.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke directly to Iran’s President Mahmoud Pezeshkian. Dar rallied support from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Türkiye, and has kept up the diplomatic push, speaking even to France’s foreign minister.
How did Pakistan, with its fragile economy, manage to seize this moment? And what does that say about India’s positioning?
Sour grapes for India?
Should India have mounted a similar diplomatic effort? The uncomfortable answer is that it was not well placed to be the diplomatic star of the moment. We have ceased to be Trump’s flavour of the month after we pointedly refused to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize and declined to give him the slightest credit for ending last May’s war.
Against this backdrop, external affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s “dalaali” remark stands out as both tactless and telling and was noted in diplomatic circles around the world. It had the unmistakable tone of sour grapes.
The comment did not go unnoticed in Pakistan. Dawn carried a full editorial on it, and Pakistan’s presidential spokesperson Murtaza Solangi responded with biting sarcasm. “The fact is he [Jaishankar] is a dalal of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi who is a dalal of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Solangi said, a swipe at Modi’s visit to Israel just days before the conflict erupted.
“I can understand why babu Jaishankar is incensed as he had embarked on a mission to isolate Pakistan but has ended up in isolating India,” he said.
India’s broader position has also narrowed its room for manoeuvre. While ties with Iran have historically been cordial, Tehran has not forgotten India’s compliance with US sanctions. An earlier foreign minister told one Indian delegation a few years ago they were deeply disappointed that India had failed to “push back”against US sanctions.
Modi’s visit to Israel just before the fighting further reduced India’s acceptability to the Iranian side.
For two decades, India has been seen as a counterweight to China. What, then, are the implications of Washington warming considerably to Pakistan? Some analysts argue that India may have stumbled diplomatically at key moments. After Kargil and the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan was clearly seen as the aggressor. But did India move too quickly after Pahalgam last May in launching the four-day war?
India’s response today is best judged by the sharpness of one minister’s remark and the tone of much television punditry. The contrast with Pakistan’s diplomatic activism is difficult to miss. Certainly, this is the first time in decades Islamabad has made headlines without any shots being fired. Can they build on their newly gained peacemaker halo?
High stakes for Pakistan
Financially Pakistan’s still in a very sticky position and its diplomatic triumphs are unlikely to pull it out of this economic swamp. Pakistanis are enraged that the UAE has demanded its $3.5 billion loan back.
Pakistan has stabilised its finances somewhat, with foreign exchange reserves at around $16 billion, but this has come at a cost. Controls on spending and delays in approving foreign exchange, even for vital auto and other industrial inputs, continue to weigh on growth.
For now, the question is whether Pakistan can persuade the US and Iran to sign up to a durable peace. Israel has expanded its war in Lebanon, and Iran has not reopened the crucial Strait of Hormuz. The stakes remain high and the task formidable.
On Saturday, the US and Iranian teams are expected to sit in separate rooms with Pakistani officials carrying messages between them.
If Pakistan can carry this through, if it can deliver even a measure of peace, it will have achieved a diplomatic triumph of global proportions. And that would be a bitter pill for India.