Wars are often remembered by the names of those who started them. History, however, ultimately judges them by the objectives they failed to achieve.
The conflict that engulfed the Middle East after October 7, 2023, was presented by Israel as a war for security. Yet as Israeli forces moved from Gaza into Lebanon, entrenched themselves deeper in the occupied Palestinian territories and crossed into new areas of southern Syria, a larger strategic pattern became increasingly difficult to ignore.
One does not need an official policy paper to acknowledge the concept of “Greater Israel” because it remains embedded in strands of Revisionist Zionism and religious nationalism that regard much of historic Palestine as the permanent inheritance of the Jewish state. For decades, settlements translated parts of that ideology into facts on the ground.
Islamabad recognised that supporting the security of Saudi Arabia did not require endorsing a regional war against Iran.
After October 7, the language became more explicit and the opportunities greater. Gaza had already suffered destruction on a scale that made reconstruction almost unimaginable. Most of its approximately 2.1 million inhabitants remained displaced even after the announcement of a ceasefire. Israeli politicians openly discussed permanent Israeli control, new settlements and the removal of Palestinians from the territory.
In July 2025, the Israeli Knesset adopted a non-binding motion supporting annexation of the occupied West Bank. In the first half of 2026 alone, more than 1,000 settler attacks reportedly caused casualties or property damage across more than 230 Palestinian communities. By July, more than 3,200 Palestinians had been displaced through settler attacks, demolitions and restrictions imposed by the occupation.
Lebanon became the second battlefield.
Israel argued that its military operations were necessary to eliminate threats from Hezbollah. Yet military action steadily expanded beyond immediate border security. Israeli troops established a buffer zone inside Lebanese territory, while airstrikes and evacuation orders emptied large areas far beyond the front line.
At one stage, Israeli forces occupied a zone covering approximately 600 square kilometres. Evacuation orders and military activity affected a much wider area, leaving nearly one-fifth of Lebanon severely disrupted or effectively inaccessible to many of its inhabitants. By the summer of 2026, more than one million Lebanese had been displaced and over 4,000 people killed during the renewed conflict.
Israeli forces then moved beyond the internationally monitored buffer zone and established positions in southern Syria, including around the strategically important Mount Hermon area.
Then came Iran.
The June 2025 confrontation had already demonstrated Israel’s willingness to transform the Iranian nuclear issue into a wider regional military question. The much larger war that began on February 28, 2026, carried even greater risks: Iran fighting the US and Israel, Gulf states confronting Iran, Lebanon collapsing under war, Syria divided into zones of influence and Türkiye facing instability along another frontier.
Who would have benefited from such disorder?
Certainly not Saudi Arabia. Not Iran. Not Türkiye. Not Pakistan. Not Egypt. Not the people of Lebanon, Syria or the Gulf.
The principal strategic beneficiary would have been Israel.
This was the danger Pakistan understood.
Islamabad recognised that supporting the security of Saudi Arabia did not require endorsing a regional war against Iran. Pakistan’s relationship with Riyadh was strengthened by its strategic defence commitments, but its relations with Tehran were based on geography, history and decades of diplomatic engagement.
Pakistan therefore refused to accept the false choice that Muslim states must either stand with Saudi Arabia or stand with Iran.
It stood for the security of both.
When attacks threatened Saudi territory, Islamabad reaffirmed its support for the kingdom’s sovereignty and security. At the same time, Pakistan opposed attacks on Iran and insisted that the conflict could not be resolved through military escalation.
This balancing role was possible because Pakistan possessed something increasingly rare in the Middle East: credibility across rival political camps.
Pakistan could speak to Riyadh without being regarded as hostile by Tehran. It could communicate with Iran without alarming Saudi Arabia. It maintained working relations with Washington while refusing to abandon its principled position on Palestine.
On March 29, Islamabad brought together senior representatives of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt. The objective was not to create another ceremonial Muslim forum producing statements that nobody would implement. The purpose was to prevent regional escalation and establish a pathway towards negotiations.
Pakistan subsequently emerged as one of the principal intermediaries between Washington and Tehran. Türkiye provided political weight. Qatar contributed its experience in difficult negotiations and discreet financial diplomacy. Saudi Arabia exercised strategic restraint.
The importance of Riyadh’s restraint should not be underestimated.
Had Saudi Arabia responded to Iranian attacks by joining the war, the conflict might have become a permanent Sunni-Shia confrontation stretching across the Middle East. Instead, the kingdom resisted pressure for direct escalation. This discouraged smaller Gulf states from becoming parties to a war whose consequences nobody could control.
Pakistan helped create the diplomatic space in which that restraint became possible. Its role was, however, larger than arranging meetings or carrying messages.
Pakistan helped prevent the military fragmentation of the Middle East.
Again, it was Pakistan that prevented conflict between Iran and the Gulf from becoming inevitable. Similarly, it was Pakistan that demonstrated that Muslim states did not have to destroy one another merely because outside powers expected them to choose rival camps.
Most importantly, Pakistan refused to separate regional peace from the Palestinian question.
Islamabad supported efforts to end the war in Gaza but did not accept that Palestinian rights could be sacrificed in exchange for diplomatic recognition of Israel. Pakistan’s position remained clear: recognition cannot precede a just settlement, an independent Palestinian state and the fulfilment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
Some may ask what Pakistan gained from this diplomacy.
The answer is that diplomacy is not always measured through contracts, loans or public ceremonies.
Sometimes a country’s achievement lies in the war that did not spread. Sometimes influence is demonstrated not by occupying territory but by preventing others from doing so.
The writer is a freelance columnist.