The Limits of Mediation in an Era of Weakened Deterrence

On 17 June, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stood in Islamabad and held the signed memorandum for the cameras, and a lot of people, honestly, exhaled. The paper promised that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen and that the American blockade of Iranian ports would end. Then a ship was struck, the US hit Iran’s coast, and by 7 July President Trump had declared the whole thing finished. Three weeks. That is how long the high point lasted, and it tells you plenty about what mediators can and cannot do.

Pakistan, Qatar and China have each tried to close the distance between Washington and Tehran. The distance is wide. Washington wants Iran’s nuclear and missile capability cut back, along with its network of friends in the region; Tehran wants a guarantee, absolute and permanent, that it will never be attacked again, and it will not bargain that away. A mediator can carry messages, arrange rooms, even arrange handshakes. Making two positions like these meet is another matter.

Start with the memoranda themselves, because the flaws are built into the paper. An MoU is not a treaty. It talks of a “pathway”, which is a pleasant word and binds nobody. The Islamabad document was read differently by everyone who touched it: Pakistan said Hormuz would open “instantly” and the blockade would end “immediately”, Tehran heard a promise, and Washington heard a first step that still needed Iranian concessions behind it. Anyone who has watched our own politics knows this movie. Two parties sign one page and walk out carrying two different meanings; the deal is dead before the ink dries.

Then there is the question of who moves first. Iran says the blockade goes before anything else is discussed. America says Hormuz and the nuclear file must be settled before pressure eases. Every ceasefire so far has asked one side to trust the other first, and neither has given the other a reason to.

Enforcement is the third hole, and perhaps the biggest. The mediators sign, they smile, and then they have no stick at all. One analyst put it bluntly: holding a ceasefire together for months is Washington’s and Tehran’s job, not Islamabad’s. Without monitors or a penalty clause, one incident at sea or one strike on the coast brings the whole structure down.

And the memorandum had enemies at home. Reports suggest opposition inside Washington itself led to its abandonment. When a few people at the top shake hands and the rest of the system was never brought on board, the deal is on borrowed time.

Underneath all this sits a bigger problem, which is how each side reads the other. Washington looks at Iran and sees an economy in trouble. Offshore oil stocks are reported to have fallen sharply; the currency is weak, inflation is high, businesses are close to bankruptcy. American hawks conclude that pressure is working and a little more will break Tehran. Iran looks back and sees a superpower that began a war expecting a quick win and did not get one. The original plan, reportedly, was regime change within weeks. When that failed the goals were scaled down, and Tehran takes that as weakness. It thinks it simply has to wait.

Dangerous, this. Each side believes the clock favours it, so each treats compromise as defeat. A ceasefire holds only when both parties are tired enough to take less than they wanted, and right now both believe the other is about to blink. Iran keeps repeating that it reserves the right to answer American attacks; that is not the language of a government in a hurry to settle.

Deterrence used to rest on one belief, that nobody could really challenge the American military. That belief has taken damage. The strongest navy in the world has not been able to force Hormuz open, nor force Tehran to the table on its own terms, while a much weaker state has shown it can hurt global shipping and energy markets and still absorb heavy punishment. When deterrence thins out, both sides take bigger gambles because neither is sure how things will end. Small incidents grow. The diplomats are left running about with buckets.

Which is why the change in who is mediating matters so much. The old US-Iran contact ran quietly through Oman and Switzerland, away from the cameras. Now Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt and others sit in the front seat. Pakistan brokered the April ceasefire and hosted the Islamabad talks; Qatar hosted the first face-to-face meeting between American and Iranian officials in four decades; China backed a peace framework in late March, and Islamabad helped secure it. For Islamabad, in particular, it is a remarkable turn. A country Washington once kept at arm’s length now has Field Marshal Asim Munir and the Prime Minister sitting alongside American negotiators.

None of them is neutral, though, and that is a real weakness. Pakistan has sent troops to help defend Saudi Arabia against Houthi attacks and signed defence pacts with Gulf and other partners, all while talking to Tehran. Qatar needs its tankers moving through Hormuz, and it holds frozen Iranian funds that sit at the centre of the latest proposal. China wants steady oil supplies. Every mediator has something of its own riding on the outcome (money, security, or a seat at the high table), and there is a risk that they start striking separate transit arrangements for themselves and drift apart.

Still, writing them off would be a mistake. Both sides trust them enough to keep a channel open, and when direct contact has broken down that is no small thing. The newest Pakistan-Qatar proposal reportedly lets Iran receive the interest on frozen funds held in Qatar in return for steps towards de-escalation; early reports say both sides responded positively. We have heard such optimism before, of course.

Mediation can cut the damage. It cannot stand in for political will. A lasting ceasefire needs a text both sides read the same way, a step-by-step plan in which early moves are small and checkable, and some independent mechanism to verify compliance. Above all, Washington and Tehran must accept that the other is not about to collapse.

Islamabad deserves credit, and the world is better off with these channels open than shut. But a mediator can only open the door. The two parties still have to walk through it, and that decision is theirs alone.