US-Iran: Maleeha Lodhi on Pakistan's New Role as Middle East Powerbroker

ELI5 / TLDR

After six weeks of US-Iran war, it was Pakistan — not a superpower, not the UN — that got both sides to sit down and talk. Pakistan pulled this off because its army chief had a personal rapport with Trump (built through flattery, business deals, and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination), while simultaneously maintaining close ties with Iran. The bigger story: American military dominance in the Middle East is cracking, middle powers like Pakistan are stepping into the gap, and China is quietly winning by not bombing anyone.

Summary

Mishal Husain interviews Maleeha Lodhi, one of Pakistan’s most experienced diplomats (twice ambassador to Washington, plus London and the UN), about how Pakistan brokered a ceasefire between the US and Iran. The conversation covers the personal relationships that made the mediation possible, the US miscalculations that prolonged the war, the economic pain Pakistan itself was suffering, and the broader power shift away from American dominance in the Middle East. Lodhi is notably candid — she criticizes her own country’s Nobel Prize stunt, its joining Trump’s “Board of Peace,” and the military’s dominance of civilian diplomacy. She argues that America keeps making the same mistake: assuming that bombing a country will cause its people to turn against their own government, when the opposite happens every time.

Key Takeaways

Pakistan brokered the US-Iran ceasefire by being the rare country trusted by both sides. Arab states were ruled out, Oman had been burned before, and Turkey lacked the personal connection to Trump that Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir had.
The Trump-Munir relationship was built through calculated flattery. Pakistan extradited a terrorist Trump cared about, publicly thanked him after the India-Pakistan conflict, nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and offered sweetheart business deals plus access to critical minerals.
Iran’s Strait of Hormuz leverage was the wildcard nobody in Washington planned for. It became the central negotiating chip and the hardest issue to resolve. Iran wants to charge fees for maritime traffic. The US wants joint operations. The positions are far apart.
The US repeated its classic mistake: underestimating nationalism. The assumption that assassinating Iranian leaders would cause regime collapse failed, just as similar assumptions failed in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. War unifies populations — it doesn’t fracture them.
Pakistan was desperate for this to work. It imports 90% of its oil from the Gulf. Schools closed. Fuel prices spiked. The country is on an IMF program. A prolonged war would have wrecked its already fragile economy.
India has been sidelined. By breaking from its traditional pro-Palestinian, pro-Iran positions and aligning with Israel, Modi’s government found itself on what Lodhi calls “the wrong side of history.”
China is the quiet winner. It’s now the largest trading partner of the EU, most of Asia, and even India. While the US wages wars of choice, China projects stability. The contrast, as Lodhi puts it, is “stunning.”
Gulf states feel abandoned by America. When the fighting started, the US defended Israel, not them. That realization will drive realignments for years.

Detailed Notes

How Pakistan Became the Mediator

The short version: Pakistan had the phone numbers that mattered on both sides.

On the American side, Field Marshal Asim Munir (Pakistan’s army chief, and the real power in the country’s “hybrid government”) had built a personal bond with Trump through a series of moves that some Pakistanis found embarrassingly servile. It started when Pakistan arrested and extradited the terrorist responsible for the Kabul airport bombing during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump was so pleased he mentioned it in his first address to Congress.

Then came the India-Pakistan conflict. After Trump helped defuse it, Pakistani leaders heaped praise on him. Then came the Nobel Peace Prize nomination — which Lodhi herself publicly opposed, arguing you don’t give a peace prize to someone who’s been bombing countries. But it worked. Trump drew closer. Pakistan sweetened the deal further with business opportunities and access to critical minerals (a sore spot for the US, which had fallen behind China in that race).

On the Iranian side, the relationship was rebuilt after a low point in 2024 when Pakistan and Iran were literally firing missiles at each other over alleged terrorist hideouts on each other’s soil. The fence-mending accelerated when Pakistan was the most vocal Muslim country in expressing solidarity with Iran after the Israeli-American bombing campaign. Iranian officials, including Ali Larijani (later assassinated), made a stream of visits to Islamabad.

When both the US and Iran needed a go-between, the options were thin. Arab states had picked sides. Oman didn’t want to try again. Turkey lacked the Trump connection. Pakistan was basically the last credible option.

The Negotiations: Maximalist Positions on Both Sides

Both the US and Iran are publicly claiming victory. Both know their opening demands are unrealistic. The question is whether they can meet in the middle.

There’s a precedent for hope: when Oman was mediating earlier, the two sides were apparently close to a deal. Then the US joined Israel in attacking Iran, and that was the end of that.

The new wrinkle is the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which a huge chunk of the world’s oil flows. Iran discovered (or, more accurately, the world discovered) that controlling this chokepoint gave Iran enormous leverage. Trump has been saying he wants to jointly operate the strait with Iran. Iran says it’s willing to work with Oman, not the US, and it wants to charge fees for maritime traffic. These are the kinds of positions that either get resolved through painful compromise or don’t get resolved at all.

Trump’s position also has a consistency problem. As Lodhi puts it: “President Trump keeps changing his mind every few hours.”

The Israel Problem

The biggest threat to any deal isn’t the US or Iran — it’s Israel. If Israel continues attacking Iran after a ceasefire, it would expose Trump’s inability (or unwillingness) to restrain Netanyahu. Pakistan’s PM says the Israeli war in Lebanon should be part of the negotiations. Israel says it isn’t.

Lodhi frames this as the key question: Can Trump actually control Israel? Nobody knows yet.

Lodhi’s sharpest analysis is about a pattern the US keeps repeating. In Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran, Washington assumed that military force would break the enemy’s will. Every time, the opposite happened. Bombing a country doesn’t make its citizens turn against their government. It makes them rally around the flag.

The US thought killing Iranian leaders would cause the regime to collapse. It didn’t. The same logic failed with the Taliban, who weren’t exactly beloved in Afghanistan but managed to outlast a 20-year American occupation.

Lodhi finds it paradoxical: America is one of the most flag-waving, patriotic countries on earth, and yet it consistently fails to understand that other nations’ citizens feel the same way about their own countries.

The Decline of American Dominance

Lodhi’s thesis: the era of US dominance in the Middle East is functionally over. The combined might of the US and Israel couldn’t subdue a militarily weaker Iran whose regional allies had already been weakened. She expects the US to eventually question why it keeps thousands of troops in the region when they can’t determine outcomes.

This isn’t just about the war. It’s the continuation of a trend. Power is dispersing. The US can only get what it wants through cooperation with others, which is precisely what Trump refuses to do.

Pakistan’s Self-Interest and Internal Contradictions

Pakistan’s mediation wasn’t altruistic. The country imports nearly 90% of its oil from the Gulf. A prolonged war would have destroyed an economy already on IMF life support. Schools were closing. People couldn’t afford to get to work. Oil prices spiked.

Lodhi is also candid about Pakistan’s democratic deficit. When asked about the fact that an unelected army officer is driving the country’s biggest diplomatic achievement, her response: “Welcome to Pakistan. That’s where we’ve been for a lot of our history.”

She also criticizes Pakistan joining Trump’s “Board of Peace,” an organization clearly designed to be an alternative to the UN and to legitimize Trump’s Gaza plans. She says Pakistan shouldn’t have signed up. In a small mercy, Trump appears to have gotten bored with it.

India on the Wrong Side

India, under Modi, broke from decades of foreign policy tradition. It abandoned its pro-Palestinian stance, distanced itself from Iran, and aligned with Israel. The result: it’s been completely sidelined from the most important diplomatic process in the region. Lodhi says Pakistan’s gain is partly India’s self-inflicted loss — Pakistan can now position itself as a Middle East player rather than being stuck in the India-Pakistan binary.

China: Winning by Default

China emerges as the biggest beneficiary without doing much. While the US wages a “war of choice,” China presents itself as a force for stability — and, Lodhi argues, it actually is one. It’s the largest trading partner of the EU, most Asian nations, and even India. Reports suggest China helped persuade Iran to come to the table, though Lodhi can’t confirm the details.

The contrast she draws: the US is run by someone who acts on whim and has disrupted global trade. China is building partnerships. The world is noticing.

Quotes / Notable Moments

“Why are we giving a Nobel Peace Prize to a man who has not exactly been promoting peace around the world?”

“Welcome to Pakistan. That’s where we’ve been for a lot of our history.” — on being asked whether democracy is the loser when an unelected army officer runs the diplomacy

“The US historically underestimates the power of nationalism. It’s done that throughout history. It did that in Vietnam, did that in Afghanistan, did that in Iraq, and now did this in Iran.”

“War has the opposite effect. People close ranks, they forget their internal differences. They come together.”

“Here is a country which really takes pride in its own country where people are flag-waving, patriotic, much store is put on all of that — and yet they don’t understand that other countries have people who are equally proud of their country.”

“President Trump keeps changing his mind every few hours. So if I say he said this last time, it may change in the next two days. I mean, I can’t guarantee that.”

“They can’t keep going to war every seven months. I mean they can, but I think the costs are piling up.”

Claude’s Take

What’s solid: Lodhi’s core argument about US miscalculations is well-grounded in historical precedent. The nationalism thesis — that bombing countries unifies rather than fractures them — is supported by decades of evidence from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq. Her account of how the Pakistan-Trump relationship was built is specific and credible; the sequence of gestures (extradition, Nobel nomination, mineral deals) matches public reporting.

What’s strong but one-sided: Her framing of Pakistan’s role is accurate but generous. Pakistan didn’t broker this deal out of diplomatic vision — it brokered it because its economy was about to collapse from the oil price spike. That’s not a criticism; self-interest is a perfectly legitimate motivator. But the narrative of Pakistan as a rising “middle power shaping geopolitics” should be weighed against the fact that the country is on an IMF program, its diplomacy is run by its military, and its leverage came largely from one army chief’s personal flattery of Donald Trump. That’s resourceful improvisation, not structural power.

What’s worth questioning: Lodhi’s portrayal of China as a “force for peace, cooperation, and stability” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. China is absolutely winning the economic competition and projecting stability compared to the US right now. But calling it a force for peace requires ignoring its posture toward Taiwan, its treatment of Uyghurs, and its support for authoritarian regimes globally. The framing is accurate as comparative PR — China looks calm next to the US — but it’s not a complete picture.

Her suggestion that India is on “the wrong side of history” is a Pakistani diplomat’s assessment of India. File accordingly. India’s alignment with Israel has indeed cost it diplomatically in the Muslim world, but whether that makes it the “wrong side of history” depends entirely on how the next few years play out.

What’s missing: There’s almost no discussion of what ordinary Iranians are going through. The conversation is entirely about state actors and their calculations. Also absent: any skepticism about whether Pakistan’s mediation will actually hold. Ceasefires are easy. Lasting settlements are hard. The Strait of Hormuz question alone could take years to resolve.

Bottom line: This is a sharp, well-informed interview with a diplomat who knows her subject and isn’t afraid to criticize her own government’s decisions. The analysis of US overreach and middle-power dynamics is genuinely insightful. Take the China praise and the India criticism with appropriate salt.