By Arif Ansar

Context

The fragile security landscape of South Asia is increasingly tied to the volatile geopolitics of the Middle East. As the tripartite tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran simmer, the shockwaves are felt acutely in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and for that matter India as well. To fully comprehend this equation, one must analyze the internal regional dynamics of South Asia first and then trace how they intersect with the unfolding Middle Eastern crisis.

The successful negotiation and remote signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on June 17, 2026, by U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, marked a monumental achievement for Pakistan’s civil-military leadership. If the Islamabad MoU sticks, in its current or reformed form, and transitions into a durable peace agreement, it holds the potential to fundamentally rewrite Pakistan’s domestic security, energy, and economic paradigms.

1. The Regional Dynamics: South Asia’s Internal Fault Lines

The relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan is currently defined by severe friction rather than neighborly cooperation. At the center of this tension is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an extremist group that has escalated its terror campaign inside Pakistan. Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of providing safe havens and tacit support to the TTP—a claim the Taliban administration in Kabul denies, though the cross-border nature of TTP attacks remains a persistent flashpoint.

Concurrently, Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan is facing a severe security crisis. The insurgent groups such as Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) are demanding independence for the resource-rich province, has dramatically escalated its attacks against the Pakistani military.

Media reports suggest that the BLA is receiving strategic cooperation and material support from the TTP, creating a combined internal security challenge for Islamabad. Pakistan alleges that the BLA receives external backing from India to destabilize the country. India and Israel are exceptionally close strategic allies, sharing deep defense, intelligence, and counter-terrorism partnerships.

There is great power rivalry part of the equation too. BLA has repeatedly targeted Chinese infrastructure projects and personnel associated with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Balochistan in other parts of the country, aiming to disrupt Pakistan’s economic lifeline and strain its relationship with Beijing.

2. The Middle East Equation: The Islamabad MoU and Saudi Defense Commitments

To understand how these South Asian fault lines link to the Middle East, one must look at Pakistan’s diplomatic balancing act. The nation has historically maintained a delicate equilibrium: keeping close ties with Saudi Arabia, and other GCC nations, while managing a long, porous border with its neighbor, Iran.

The Islamabad MoU

In mid-2026, Pakistan’s diplomatic corps, alongside Qatar, achieved a historic breakthrough by mediating the Islamabad MoU. This 14-point framework agreement successfully brought the U.S. and Iran to a temporary ceasefire, temporarily halting direct military hostilities, lifting the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports, and opening the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. This diplomatic triumph cemented Pakistan’s role as a vital regional mediator. However, as hostilities have broken again indicating the stability of the Islamabad MoU remains incredibly fragile.

The Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA)

Compounding this fragility is Pakistan’s security obligation to Riyadh. On September 17, 2025, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA). Echoing NATO’s Article 5 language, the SMDA treats “any aggression against either country as an aggression against both”.

If an all-out war breaks out in the Middle East, a dangerous chain reaction is highly likely. Ansar Allah (the Houthis) in Yemen are highly likely to close the Babul Mandab Strait and launch retaliatory ballistic missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia. Faced with direct attacks, Saudi Arabia will almost certainly invoke the SMDA. Reports indicate that under the confidential terms of the pact, Pakistan could be required to deploy up to 80,000 troops to secure Saudi borders. Sooner or later, Pakistan will be forced to choose between entering a foreign conflict to defend Saudi Arabia or reneging on its defense pact, which would devastate its economic and strategic relations with the Gulf.

3. Implications of a Worsening Middle East Conflict on Pakistan and Afghanistan

If the Middle East situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences will ripple across South Asia, severely impacting Pakistan and Afghanistan, and India across military, economic, and social domains.

Pakistan is already heavily engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) against the TTP, and in Balochistan against the BLA and BLF, the Pakistani military is stretched thin. Faced with a domestic security crisis, coming to the active defense of Saudi Arabia would be an immense logistical and military strain. Knowing this, adversaries like India and Israel are highly likely to speed up their destabilizing activities inside Pakistan. By utilizing existing proxies, they can ensure that Pakistan remains too deeply entangled in internal security crises to project military power or assist its Gulf allies.

This regional sabotage directly undermines Washington’s strategic goals. The U.S. relies on Pakistan’s diplomatic weight to mediate with Tehran, as seen with the Islamabad MoU. A destabilized Pakistan is a nation that cannot play a constructive role in preventing a wider regional war in the Middle East or contribute towards the success of new vision for the Middle East – under the Abraham Accords and subsequent establishment of Board of Peace.

The Explosion of Sectarian Strife

A direct conflict involving Iran—the primary Shia power—and the U.S., Israel, or Sunni Arab Gulf states will instantly inflame sectarian fault lines in South Asia. Both Pakistan Afghanistan have sizable Shia minorities that have historically been targeted by hardline Sunni extremist groups. While India also has a sizeable Shia population, and while Muslims there face state repression, Shia’s there have not been targeted in a similar fashion.

A worsening Middle East war will be actively exploited by transnational terror networks, most notably Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). ISIS-K, which operates across both Afghanistan and Pakistan, views Shia Muslims as heretics and has frequently targeted their mosques, community centers, and schools.

In Afghanistan: The ruling Taliban, while ideologically hardline Sunni, has sought to maintain basic internal stability. However, a regional sectarian war will severely test their control. ISIS-K will use the anti-Iran, anti-Shia rhetoric of the wider conflict to recruit disgruntled fighters, escalating attacks on the Shia Hazara community and challenging Taliban authority.

In Pakistan: Sectarian violence has historically claimed thousands of lives. An active war involving Iran and Saudi Arabia could trigger a revival of sectarian proxy wars on Pakistani soil, pitting localized militant groups against one another and further fracturing the country’s social cohesion.

4. Economic Devastation and Connectivity Collapses

The economic fallout of a prolonged Middle East war on Pakistan and Afghanistan would be catastrophic.

Energy and Remittance Shocks

Pakistan imports the vast majority of its oil and gas from the Gulf. A disruption in the Strait of Hormuz or the Bab el-Mandeb would cause global oil prices to skyrocket, triggering hyperinflation in Pakistan’s fragile, debt-burdened economy. Furthermore, millions of Pakistani expatriates live and work in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. If the Middle East slides into a broader war, many of these workers could be forced to return home, cutting off the vital stream of foreign remittances that keeps Pakistan’s economy afloat.

The Death of Regional Connectivity

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan have pinned their economic futures on becoming trade hubs. Afghanistan under the Taliban has sought to utilize Iran’s Chabahar Port and the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) to bypass landlocked constraints and reduce its dependence on Pakistani transit routes.

While the Islamabad MoU briefly revived hopes for these transit corridors, an escalation of the war would render these infrastructure projects dead on arrival. Iranian ports would once again become military targets, isolating Afghanistan economically and pushing it deeper into poverty, which in turn breeds further radicalization and instability. Moreover, in the recent escalation, reports indicate that US has also targeted Chabahar port to increase pressure on Iran.

5. Conclusion: A Dangerous Convergence

The potential escalation of the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict is not a localized Middle Eastern issue; it is a direct threat to the stability of South Asia. For Pakistan, the war represents an existential geopolitical trap, forcing it to balance a strict mutual defense treaty with Saudi Arabia against the reality of a heavily armed neighbor in Iran and a domestic theater crawling with active insurgencies. For Afghanistan, the conflict threatens to fuel the fires of ISIS-K’s sectarian violence and destroy any hopes of regional economic integration.

As external actors seek to exploit these vulnerabilities, the line between the Middle East’s conflicts and South Asia’s internal wars is rapidly dissolving. If the Islamabad MoU completely unravels, Pakistan and Afghanistan will find themselves directly in the line of fire of a wider, highly destructive regional war.

Conversely:

If the Islamabad MoU “sticks” and transitions from a fragile ceasefire into a durable peace agreement, it holds the potential to fundamentally rewrite Pakistan’s domestic security, energy, and economic paradigms.

a. Security: Strangling Proxies

By capitalizing on its diplomatic leverage from mediating between the U.S. and Iran, Pakistan can demand reciprocal action against cross-border threats. A secure Iran, freed from Western military threats, can work with the Pakistan Army to seal the lawless border, choking the logistics and safe havens of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) favored by India and Israel. Simultaneously, a stabilized region enables a unified U.S.-Pakistan-Iran diplomatic front to pressure the Afghan Taliban. Highly dependent on Pakistani and Iranian transit trade (like Chabahar Port), Kabul would be forced to dismantle the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This double clampdown effectively ends the multi-front subversion designed by adversaries to keep Pakistan tactically entrapped.

b. Economy & Energy: Resurrecting the IP Pipeline

A durable reformed MoU triggers the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Iran, allowing Pakistan to complete the Iran-Pakistan (IP) Gas Pipeline without fear of international isolation. This removes the looming $18 billion “take-or-pay” penalty from Tehran, while injecting cheap natural gas to end rolling blackouts and slash industrial costs. Moreover, Gwadar Port is likely to take-off.

c. Autonomy: Balancing GCC Ties

Abundant energy and secured Central Asian trade routes drive organic growth, offering financial self-reliance and breaking Pakistan’s dependency on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bailouts. This shields Islamabad from strategic entrapment under its Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA) with Riyadh, preserving its neutrality instead of dragging its military into regional proxy wars.

US-Iran Interim Ceasefire Deal, Israel, And The Future of Abraham Accords – June 18, 2026
The US-Israel and Iran Conflict: The Interplay of Goals and Strategies – May 1, 2026
Geopolitics Of Islamic World And Middle Power Alliances After Iran Attack – Mar 22, 2026
The End Of Strategic Altruism: Putin’s Visit And The New US-India Reality – Jan 13, 2026
From Oslo To Trump’s Abraham Accords And 20-Point Peace Plan For Gaza – Oct 12, 2025
Israel Airstrike Targets Hamas Negotiators In Doha, Threatening Gaza Ceasefire Talks – Sep 15, 2025
Gaza Ceasefire Plan And US-Iran Tensions – April 26, 2025
Two-State Solution, Future Of Gaza, And Iran – February 25, 2025
Assad’s Demise And The Shifting Balance Of Power In Middle East – Dec 26, 2024
The Escalating Middle East Crisis And President Elect Trump – Dec 5, 2024
China’s Belt And Road Initiative And India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) – Oct 5, 2023
Iran’s Potential Retaliation For Haniyeh’s Killing And Wider Consequences – Aug 30, 2024
The Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project: Economic and Geopolitical Realities – Sep 27, 2024
Great Power Rivalry And China’s Deepening involvement In South Asia, Gulf States – Aug 4, 2023
What Does President Biden’s Visit To Israel And Saudi Arabia Imply? – Aug 4, 2022

The post US-Iran War And Alternative Futures For South Asia appeared first on Politact.

By Arif Ansar

Context

The escalation of open warfare between the United States, Israel, and Iran in early 2026—characterized by some as the “Third Gulf War”—has radically upended the strategic architecture of the Middle East. At the center of pre-war Western diplomatic planning were two highly integrated concepts: the Abraham Accords, aiming to build a normalization bridge between Israel and Arab states, and the Board of Peace (BOP), an international framework established under UN Security Council Resolution 2803 to oversee a post-conflict administration, international stabilization force, and real estate transformation in Gaza.

However, the military campaign launched on February 28, 2026, under the U.S.-Israeli codename “Operation Epic Fury”, fundamentally collided with the core assumptions of these frameworks. Instead of solidifying a prosperous, integrated, and Western-aligned trade bloc, the kinetic conflict exposed deep structural flaws in regional deterrence, shattered the prospects of two-state solution, and triggered an unprecedented shift in the balance of power.

1. The Disintegration of the Pre-War Vision: BOP and Abraham Accords Under Fire

Before the military escalation of 2026, the Abraham Accords and the Board of Peace functioned as a synchronized carrot-and-stick diplomatic strategy. The political objective was clear: circumvent the core issue of Palestinian statehood by offering massive economic, infrastructure, and technological incentives to the Arab world, effectively managing the region from the outside-in. The BOP was envisioned as a multi-layered colonial and financial administration—overseeing a Gaza Executive Board and a Palestinian National Committee—meant to signal a new era of regional co-prosperity.

When Operation Epic Fury commenced with devastating strikes on Iranian command structures, nuclear sites, and energy facilities, this vision suffered an immediate kinetic shock. Rather than acting as bridges for trade, the Abraham Accords were abruptly tested as raw military alignments. Iran’s retaliatory doctrine did not spare the region; Tehran launched waves of drones and ballistic missiles targeting not only Israeli territory but also Western assets and allies across the Gulf.

The BOP’s ambitious plans for Gaza—such as beachfront hotels and special economic zones—were instantly frozen as global energy markets panicked and global fertilizer and agricultural supply chains broke down. The war exposed an untenable contradiction: attempting to build an institutional framework for peace while simultaneously fighting a total regional war.

2. The Great Divergence: Independent Israeli Maneuvers vs. Joint Strategy

A central complication in the future of the BOP and the Abraham Accords is the apparent divergence between American diplomatic objectives and Israeli kinetic execution. While the United States has continuously attempted to orchestrate a diplomatic off-ramp, Israel has aggressively expanded its military footprint. Israel’s actions in Gaza, its incursions into Lebanon, and its unilateral willingness to strike deep into Iranian territory—even during active diplomatic windows—have created two starkly different strategic interpretations – that pose the most acute risk to the Interim Ceasefire Deal.

Interpretation A: The Maverick State Acting Unilaterally

This perspective argues that Israel is acting in open contradiction to Washington’s goals. Israeli leadership has made it clear that they no longer view the Oslo Accords or a two-state solution as viable frameworks. By pursuing a permanent military solution rather than a political compromise, Israel is explicitly prioritizing the absolute destruction of the “Axis of Resistance” over the long-term diplomatic health of the Abraham Accords. They are gambling that Arab states will eventually be forced to accept a dominant, nuclear-armed Israel as a fait accompli, regardless of the Palestinian issue.

Interpretation B: A Tightly Orchestrated Joint Strategy

Conversely, realism suggests that Israeli actions represent a coordinated, dual-track “Good Cop / Bad Cop” strategy with the United States. While Washington acts as the diplomatic negotiator—offering terms, carrots, and structural limitations—Israel functions as the unhinged kinetic hammer. By maintaining maximum military pressure on Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, Israel forces adversaries to negotiate from a position of acute vulnerability, allowing American diplomats to demand structural concessions that would be nearly impossible to attain through standard statecraft.

Regardless of which interpretation is accurate, the structural fallout is identical: Israel’s complete abandonment of the Palestinian political track has severed the primary artery through which the Abraham Accords were expected to expand to critical Muslim-majority nations like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who have historically conditioned formal normalization on a viable two-state solution.

3. The 60-Day Ceasefire: Why Iran Emerges in an Enhanced Position

The multi-week diplomatic push that culminated in the temporary cessation of hostilities has set the stage for a potential 60-day extended ceasefire. However, an assessment of the strategic balance indicates that if a prolonged ceasefire is institutionalized under current conditions, Iran will have effectively won the geopolitical argument, shifting the regional balance of power in its favor with far reaching implications.

Despite enduring massive leadership losses and targeted degradation of its conventional military facilities during the initial strikes of Operation Epic Fury, Tehran demonstrated profound asymmetric resilience:

• Weaponization of the Chokepoints: By effectively throttling the Strait of Hormuz and imposing a massive $2 million transit toll on commercial tankers while outright banning American and Israeli vessels, Iran proved it could hold global energy markets hostage. It’s not clear whether the toll or fees will remain in any future deal.
• Surviving Regime Change Ambitions: Iran successfully weathered a decapitation campaign that killed its highest officials, proving that its institutional and proxy network could function and retaliate even under extreme duress.
• Demonstrated Retaliatory Reach: By launching direct, sustained missile strikes against Israel and retaliating against U.S. bases in the region, Iran dismantled the myth of Western invulnerability.

As far as its nuclear program is concerned, while Iran had previously committed to not attain weaponized capability. The major criticism of the earlier agreement with Iran reached in 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under Obama administration was that it neither addressed Iran’s wider behavior in the region nor its ballistic missile program. On the positive side, JCPOA was backed by P5+1 countries i.e. US, China, Russia, France, UK, and Germany – along with European Union.

In the present context, P5+1 were not in the negotiating loop – but this does not indicate that they may not partake in any future roles. While frictions between NATO and US have increased over Ukraine and military approach towards Iran, President Trump is likely to seek support from the leaders at the G7 Summit meeting held in France, where he electronically signed the Islamabad MOU. However, in the escalating great power rivalries environment, the involvement of G7 nations will be quite nuanced.

Deciphering from the information available so far, nothing within the preliminary terms of the present ceasefire suggests that a 60-day truce will compel Iran to permanently abandon its regional proxy network. For Iran, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are vital defensive organs. Because forcing their complete dissolution is beyond the scope of a standard ceasefire, Israel will view any finalized U.S.-Iran document with deep suspicion and may ultimately refuse to honor its terms, preferring to continue its military campaign.

4. The South Asian Pivot: Pakistan and India’s Subcontinental Tussle in the Gulf

The 2026 conflict has also manifested the subcontinental rivalry of India and Pakistan directly into the Middle Eastern theater, altering the geopolitical balance of power between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

With the collapse of direct Western-led communication channels during the peak of the fighting, Pakistan leveraged its historic 900-kilometer border with Iran and its deep institutional ties with the Arab Gulf to emerge as the prime mediator between Washington and Tehran. The resulting “Islamabad Peace Process”—headlined by face-to-face talks in April 2026 between U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf—elevated Pakistan into an indispensable global peace broker. By opening up back-channel communication lines via its Interests Section in Washington, Pakistan successfully negotiated the temporary cessation of hostilities, protecting its own vital economic interests, specifically the massive flow of worker remittances from the Gulf.

This diplomatic triumph directly challenges India’s long-term strategic investments in the Middle East. Over the previous decade, New Delhi had built a formidable geopolitical axis anchored on deep technological, defense, and economic ties with Israel and the UAE. India viewed this alignment as a way to project power westward and isolate Pakistan.

However, as Pakistan successfully positions itself as the necessary arbiter of regional stability between the U.S. and Iran, India’s rigid alignment with the Israel-UAE axis risks locking it out of the broader post-war regional consensus. If the Middle East transitions into a managed “cold peace” where Iran’s equities are formally recognized, Pakistan’s diplomatic capital will grow, neutralizing some of the strategic leverage India had accumulated through its partnerships.

5. Conclusion: The Structural Impasse of the Grand Vision

The grand vision originally championed by the Abraham Accords and the Board of Peace has arrived at a structural impasse. The only plausible pathway for these frameworks to move forward as instruments of a durable, comprehensive regional peace requires two simultaneous, seemingly impossible geopolitical concessions:

1. Iran must join the bandwagon, abandoning its regional agenda and accepting a formalized integration into a security architecture alongside Israel. This would be accompanied by the cassation of support for Hezbollah and Hamas.
2. Israel must accept a viable, sovereign two-state solution, ceasing expansion of territory either via settlements or military use.  This will providing the necessary political cover for Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the wider Muslim world to formally normalize ties.

Given current political realities, neither condition is achievable. Israel’s domestic political landscape remains firmly set against territorial compromise, viewing military containment and absolute security dominance as its only viable future. Concurrently, Iran’s clerical and military elite view their asymmetric deterrent power and proxy networks as the sole shield preserving the Islamic Republic from Western-orchestrated regime change.

Consequently, whether the conflict transitions through continued military attrition or a formalized ceasefire, the Board of Peace and the Abraham Accords will be forced to mutate. Rather than tools for authentic peace and regional integration, they will function as a defensive alignment designed not to resolve the region’s core disputes, but to manage an unstable and fractured “cold peace.”

Related Articles:

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The End Of Strategic Altruism: Putin’s Visit And The New US-India Reality – Jan 13, 2026
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China’s Belt And Road Initiative And India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) – Oct 5, 2023
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The post US-Iran Interim Ceasefire Deal, Israel, And The Future of Abraham Accords appeared first on Politact.

By Furqan Khan
Great Power Politics Fellow, PoliTact

Context

President Donald Trump is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in Beijing, a summit originally scheduled for April and was stalled due to the ongoing US-Iran war. With the conflict carrying enormous economic consequences due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it is likely to be a major point of discussion at the summit. What was expected to be a reset moment for US-China relations is now overshadowed by the Middle East conflict, which carries significant implications for the global economy.

Conflict at an Impasse Stage

After the initial Islamabad Talks failed to ease tensions between Iran and the United States, Pakistan’s shuttle diplomacy has reopened the lines of communication between Washington and Tehran. Tensions escalated after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US’ refusal to end the blockade of Iranian ports. While a ‘fragile’ truce remains in place, negotiations are stalled and fears of escalation are growing as the two parties recently exchanged fire in the Persian Gulf. After rejecting Iran’s proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz and end the war, which also suggested delaying negotiations over the nuclear program, Trump reviewed another 14-point proposal from Iran, but has expressed doubts – and later rejected another version. Meanwhile, domestic opposition in the US to the war is growing, which has already cost $25 billion. Moreover, the conflict has caused extensive damage to the US military assets across the Middle East and raised the gasoline price to its highest level in four years.

In the big picture, as the US jumps into another war in the Middle East, diverting its resources from the Pacific, it is pertinent to highlight what this conflict means for China, and its interests in the Middle East, as it also embroils in great power competition.

What is at Stake for China?

Since the beginning of this conflict, China has consistently condemned the US-Israel joint strikes on Iran in February that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and demanded an immediate ceasefire. China has released numerous statements criticizing America’s broader approach to international affairs, and calling the US’ blockade of the Strait of Hormuz “dangerous and irresponsible.” Without mentioning the Iran war or blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, President Xi has criticized American actions in the Gulf, saying that the world may be returning to the “law of the jungle.”

China has substantial stakes in this conflict. It relies heavily on the Strait of Hormuz for more than a third of its energy imports. China remains Iran’s largest trading partner, and over 80 percent of its crude goes to Beijing. At the same time, China has deep economic and investment ties in the Gulf states, and the Strait of Hormuz being critical for its energy supplies, Beijing has leveraged diplomacy to seek an end to this conflict.

The China Hand

The US has accused both China and Russia of providing dual-use equipment and satellite imagery enabling Iran to target US positions in the region. The New York Times and CNN reported, citing US intelligence sources, that China was preparing a shipment of weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, to Tehran. China has denied these claims, calling them “untrue,” and stating that China opposes such “ill-intentioned conduct.”

As he is set to meet President Xi this week, Trump also played down Chinese assistance to Iran, mentioning Chinese President Xi Jinping’s reassurance that China is not providing any weapons to Iran, while warning of “big problems” for Beijing in case they do so.

The war benefits China in many ways. The spike in oil and gas prices is pushing American allies, from the European Union to the United Kingdom – and from South Korea to the Philippines, into China’s clean energy infrastructure. They see it as a long-term solution to protect their economies. China may also be relieved seeing its rival getting bogged down in yet another war with declining credibility among its allies and the diversion of the American fleet from the Pacific. The US military has already expended an enormous amount of critical munitions that could potentially be used in a future conflict with China. China also appears most resilient in terms of energy security, given its huge oil reserves – the largest in the world. According to a recent report, China has enough oil stored to cover seven months of imports via Hormuz.

However, a conflict with wider economic and security risks reverberating throughout the region is not what China wants. Prolonged instability will threaten global markets and cause supply chain challenges. Moreover, the rising oil prices is already hurting the Chinese economy, making the Iran war and opening of the Strait of Hormuz a central concern for the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting.

China’s Leverage Over Iran

China has a strategic partnership with Iran, which is reflected in the 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership signed in March 2021. This included a massive $400 billion Chinese investment in Iran and defense cooperation in exchange for the discounted purchase of Iranian oil. The partnership allows Tehran to bypass Western sanctions while giving Beijing long-term energy security. China has also expanded its diplomatic footprint in the region by brokering a peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2021, helping the two rival Gulf states restore diplomatic relations.

Despite strong economic and security ties with Iran, China’s leverage has been limited. Nonetheless, Beijing’s role has been consistent, limited, and largely predictable. Chinese officials have used their conventional shuttle diplomacy, where Foreign Minister Wang Yi dialed nearly all regional partners and played its role in the UN Security Council, calling for a negotiated settlement. Beijing also joined Islamabad, the principal mediator in this conflict, to issue a joint ‘five-point initiative’ to end the war in the Middle East. At the same time, as both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported, China actively pursued the Iranians to agree to the initial two-week-long ceasefire.

A week before the Trump-Xi summit, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met FM Wang Yi in Beijing, where Araqchi supported President Xi’s four-point proposal to end the conflict, reaffirming his “trust” in China. As part of his regional diplomacy, FM Araqchi also met Russian President Vladmir Putin in Moscow to discuss the war and continue “consultation” on regional and international issues. Trump held his own phone call with Putin during which the later expressed interest in playing an active role in ending hostilities in the US-Iran war. Trump, however, rebuffed the proposal and instead pressed Putin on ending the Ukraine war.

China’s response reflects a cautious great power strategy, where Beijing is concerned about the risks of conflict escalation but is also reaping its limited geopolitical benefits. It has not been pursuing the role of a mediator but rather a great power concerned about its broader interests in the region. Nonetheless, given its diverse energy sources and limited strategic commitment to Iran, China appears to be confident at managing the risks of this conflict.

Trump-Xi Summit 2026

As the two leaders meet this week, the Iran war and the resulting energy crisis will likely be a potential point of discussion. Trump’s announcement to continue the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which China uses to import one-third of its energy needs, complicates the process of seeking a reset on major issues, including bilateral trade with China.

Tensions are already mounting as the two powers are taking actions against each other’s firms. The Trump administration recently sanctioned China’s largest refiners and threatened secondary sanctions against Chinese banks for facilitating Iran’s economy. Beijing has blocked Meta’s $2 Billion bid to acquire the AI startup Manus, an attempt to keep cutting-edge AI technology inside China.

The rare Trump-Xi summit is an opportunity for both competitors to bring the US-China relations on track following their trade truce in October last year. Trump realizes this and has been seeking a deal with Iran before the Summit. He wants to meet Xi from a position of strength and not with an unresolved conflict he started, alongside Israel, two months ago, which may now be giving the Chinese side an advantage. With the Iran war hanging over the summit, the meeting will may fall short of the expected outcomes in seeking a reset to the US-China bilateral relations.

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The post Iran War Overhangs Trump-Xi 2026 Summit appeared first on Politact.

The Geography of Stalemate: Risk Thresholds, Narrative Warfare, and the Quest for a New Regional Order

By Naade Ali

Context

Since the war began, it has become clear that the U.S., Israel, and Iran operate with fundamentally different risk thresholds—and those differences shape their strategies. The U.S. is less willing to tolerate prolonged economic strain but more inclined to employ overwhelming force, assuming it will bring the conflict to a swift conclusion. Israel, on the other hand, is betting on a scenario in which Iranian strikes on Gulf states provoke diplomatic backlash, potentially drawing those states into retaliatory action. Such a chain of events could pave the way for the broader regional alignment envisioned by Prime Minister Netanyahu, aimed at countering “radical Shi’a and Sunni forces” and ultimately weakening the Iranian regime. Israel, therefore, is prepared to bear the costs necessary to make this outcome possible.

From Iran’s perspective, the goal is to prevent this scenario from unfolding while influencing on GCC that American military presence on their soil has a cost and no benefit. Iran’s mosaic military doctrine is designed to endure sustained pressure while simultaneously increasing unpredictability and risk, making its actions more dangerous and uncertain. This high-risk tolerance remains one of its few tools to establish and maintain deterrence—something it is unlikely to compromise.

Iran’s geography plays a key role in its Anti-Access/Area-Denial

At present, it appears that the world’s most advanced military systems, equipped with cutting-edge and futuristic capabilities, are fundamentally constrained by geographical realities. Iran’s geography is a central “force multiplier” for its Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) strategy, effectively turning the country into a natural fortress that complicates any conventional military intervention. The superior airpower fielded by Israel and the United States has not translated into absolute control over critical chokepoints held by Iran, nor has it succeeded in dismantling the undersea and “Undermountain” missile infrastructure that keeps Iran’s defensive network largely operational and difficult to conquer despite relentless bombardment. These deeply embedded installations, carved into the Zagros Mountains, act as fortified nodes that enable Iran to sustain command-and-control functions.

While air strikes can degrade capabilities, complete neutralization requires a high-intensity land campaign—a scenario fraught with risk. Iran’s military doctrine leverages its unique topography, using natural barriers and limited access points to offset an adversary’s technological edge. For any invading force, the combination of logistical hurdles and Iran’s mastery of its difficult terrain makes a quick victory highly improbable. Consequently, U.S. strategy faces a stark trade-off: rely on stand-off strikes that degrade but do not eliminate threats, or escalate toward high-risk options for more decisive results. This geographic and structural advantage effectively cements a strategic stalemate, as Iran’s hardened infrastructure and ‘natural fortress’ prevent any effort from achieving a rapid military outcome.

For Iran, prolonging the conflict appears to be the preferred course at this stage. Tehran has deliberately increased the costs of the war to unprecedented levels so it can have maximum leverage in negotiations with the United States, with its core demands of—financial compensation, the removal of all sanctions, a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region and recognition of its control over strategic maritime chokepoints.

Iran’s use of threat language is particularly significant in this regard. The rhetoric can exert psychological pressure on adversaries, yet it risks backfiring if not supported by actual capability. In Iran’s case, however, its warnings have proven credible rather than symbolic. This is demonstrated by its selective attacks on regional countries and control over the Strait of Hormuz, where only vessels linked to China are permitted passage, effectively transforming global trade into a strategic instrument against the U.S. alliance.

The Narrative Pivot: Trump’s Strategy of Perception Over Conquest

In the conflict with Iran, Trump’s “winning card” is his ability to control the narrative, prioritizing the appearance of victory over the reality of a physical win. He relies on narrative dominance, using the perception of a diplomatic breakthrough to maintain both domestic support and global leverage. While he projects an image of Iran “begging” for a deal, the actual conflict on the ground remains a complex stalemate.

The sudden and highly visible emphasis on diplomacy, initiated under the Islamabad Talks, reflects a calculated effort to manage domestic expectations through narrative control. By steering attention toward backchannel negotiations, President Trump diverts focus from military challenges or internal criticism. It illustrates a broader tactic of strategic distraction: when one narrative weakens, another is introduced to create uncertainty. This deliberate blurring of facts makes it harder for the public to form clear judgments or hold leadership accountable. In this way, confusion becomes a tool—dampening opposition and creating space for an exit framed more by optics than by conventional military success.

On the other side, deeper internal challenges confronting the Trump administration are becoming increasingly evident. Among them is a formal Pentagon request for $200 billion to sustain military operations, a proposal that has provoked strong criticism and concern among both Democrats and fiscal conservatives in Congress. Democrats are actively leveraging the conflict for political advantage, accusing Trump of leading the United States into an unnecessary and prolonged war while positioning themselves ahead of the November midterm elections in hopes of securing a legislative majority. Meanwhile, Republicans with long-term political aspirations—like Vice President JD Vance, widely considered a likely contender for the 2028 presidential race—are encountering increasing challenges in presenting a persuasive “America First” vision as the conflict drags on.

It was during the widespread fatigue and disillusionment from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that Trump originally solidified his “America First” persona. Yet, the prolonged confrontation with Iran threatens to undermine that narrative, as rising casualties, economic strain, and geopolitical entanglements make it harder for emerging Republican leaders to argue for restrained foreign intervention while projecting strength abroad. Vance and others must now navigate a delicate balance: appealing to a voter base that values both national security and fiscal prudence, while demonstrating that they can manage a complex, protracted conflict without repeating the mistakes of previous administrations. This tension illustrates how domestic political ambitions are increasingly intertwined with the outcomes and perception of foreign military engagements.

As a result, the U.S. campaign against Iran has generated numerous challenges and setbacks that outweigh its tactical military achievements to date.

Israeli Game Plan

For Israel, the conflict represents a rare and historic opportunity to significantly weaken Iran. The country appears prepared for a prolonged confrontation; recent surveys indicate that 81% of Israelis support military action, with many willing to endure sustained attacks to see the collapse of the Iranian regime. Years of conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah have conditioned Israel to absorb both psychological and physical strain. In such an environment, hardship becomes normalized, allowing for greater societal resilience. While both Iran and Israel appear capable of enduring prolonged shocks, the United States lacks the same tolerance, creating a possible divergence in strategic trajectories.

In Israel’s view, the objective is to push further toward definitive regime change. However, it recognizes that airstrikes alone are unlikely to achieve this goal, which is why it is increasingly considering the possibility of a ground invasion, potentially with U.S. support. Such a move, however, would likely initiate a prolonged conflict. Israel understands that ending the war prematurely would risk undermining the gains it has already made. While this could help the Israeli government to maintain domestic unity by framing the conflict as an existential necessity, it would not necessarily produce similar political benefits for President Trump or his Republican Party at home.

For the United States, one possible course could involve stepping back and allowing Iran and Israel to confront each other directly. However, Iran appears to have anticipated such a scenario and does not intend for the conflict to remain confined. Its recent shift in military doctrine—confirmed by Major General Ali Abdollahi as a transition from defense to offense—indicates an ambition to expand the effects of the war from a regional to a global scale. By exploiting interconnected vulnerable systems of energy, food, and trade, Iran seeks to create a cascading effect in which damage inflicted upon it reverberates worldwide. Its broader objective appears to be the erosion of U.S. dominance and the restructuring of global power toward a Chinese-centered order.

By encouraging Arab states to align with China’s Global Security Initiative, Iran is promoting an alternative model of security that prioritizes sovereignty over U.S. involvement. In effect, it is attempting to achieve through warfare what China could not accomplish solely through economic means. This strategic gameplay was acknowledged by President Trump himself, who described the situation as a ‘big chess game’ suggesting that Iran is acting as a “smart player, playing high-level chess.”

Iran is striving to ensure that any resolution to the conflict will not restore the pre-war status quo. Instead, it seeks to extract maximum gains whenever negotiations take place. If Iran’s objectives are realized and revenues begin to flow, Iran would not only rebuild its economy but also invest heavily in military modernization, developing capabilities that could prove extremely difficult to counter in any future confrontation.

This prospect is deeply concerning for Israel, which anticipates that a post-war Iran could emerge as a highly militarized and resilient power. From Israel’s perspective, the only viable strategy is to continue the war and ensure that Iran is weakened to such an extent that rebuilding its military strength would take decades. However, such an approach demands sustained endurance, strategic patience, and a high tolerance for risk—traits that Iran has already demonstrated.

Whether Israel can maintain this level of resilience remains uncertain, and this question will become clearer as the conflict continues. This is not a short-term confrontation, but a prolonged struggle likely to reshape regional power dynamics. With diplomatic positions varying and domestic political pressures mounting, the conflict is likely to persist. The result is a negative-sum dynamic in which decisive victory remains unlikely; escalation risks stay high, and any eventual endgame will reflect not shared interests but the relative exhaustion and leverage of the parties involved.

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The post The US-Israel and Iran Conflict: The Interplay of Goals and Strategies appeared first on Politact.

By Arif Ansar

Context

The Middle East’s contemporary realignment did not begin with the war between Iran and Israel, nor with Iranian strikes on U.S. bases across the Gulf. It began earlier, with the slow erosion of faith in a security order built on American primacy, Israeli military overmatch, and the assumption of Arab strategic compliance. The Israeli strike on Doha in September 2025 merely stripped away the last illusions. What followed was not unity, but fragmentation. Instead, the Islamic world entered a phase of deliberate Middle Power alliance‑building, driven by layered threat perceptions and an urgent desire for strategic autonomy.

At the center of this transformation is a paradox. The region is witnessing the rise of new alliances, yet these alliances are not designed to fight a single enemy. They are instead meant to buffer against multiple threats simultaneously: Iranian asymmetry, Israeli unilateralism, and U.S. unpredictability. Complicating this further is the re‑emergence of the “Greater Israel” narrative, which has amplified regional fears that Israeli military power is no longer bounded by defensive logic alone.

From Gulf Unity to Gulf Divergence

For much of the post‑Arab Spring period, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates were viewed as the twin pillars of Arab order. They coordinated in Yemen, aligned against political Islam, and worked closely with Washington. That partnership now seem to have fractured into a structural rivalry rooted in fundamentally different understandings of power and risk.

Saudi Arabia has increasingly embraced a state‑centric, formalized security approach and strategic autonomy. Scarred by years of proxy warfare and conscious of the vulnerability of its economic transformation under Vision 2030, Riyadh has grown wary of open‑ended confrontation—particularly wars triggered by actors outside its control. Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure, U.S. bases, and shipping lanes reinforced Saudi fears not just of Tehran, but of being caught between Washington and Tehran. This explains Riyadh’s pivot toward formal defense guarantees, most notably with Pakistan, and its growing strategic convergence with Turkey.

The UAE, by contrast, has doubled down on a networked, maritime, and technology‑driven security model. Abu Dhabi prefers flexible alignments, proxy leverage, and intelligence dominance over rigid alliance hierarchies. Its deepening ties with Israel and India reflect a desire to hedge not only against Iran, but also against Saudi Arabia’s ambition to re‑centralize Arab leadership. This divergence—well captured in PoliTact’s analysis of Saudi‑UAE power tussles with Turkey and Iran—has become one of the most important drivers of bloc formation in the region. The result is not a split over ideology, but over risk management. Riyadh fears escalation without control; Abu Dhabi fears marginalization within a Saudi‑led order.

As Middle Power alliances harden across the Middle East, the other Gulf states—Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait—illustrate divergent strategies for managing exposure, autonomy, and survival amid the erosion of the U.S.-centric security order. Unlike Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which seek to shape regional outcomes through competing alliance architectures, these states operate primarily as system navigators, each responding differently to rising unilateralism and unmanaged escalation.

Qatar occupies the most exposed position. Its foreign policy has emphasized mediation, diplomatic connectivity, and hosting high‑level interlocutors, allowing Doha to play a central role in ceasefire negotiations and crisis diplomacy. This strategy, however, has carried increasing risk. The Israeli airstrike in Doha in September 2025—widely analyzed as a stress test for Gulf mediation and U.S. security guarantees—demonstrated the limits of protection derived from connectivity alone and raised questions about the durability of mediator immunity in a more permissive strike environment. Mediation provides access and relevance, but as escalation becomes kinetic, it offers diminishing insulation.

Bahrain represents the opposite strategy. Rather than seeking autonomy through flexibility, Manama has embedded itself deeply within Saudi‑led and U.S.‑aligned security structures. Hosting the U.S. Fifth Fleet and relying on external guarantees for regime stability, Bahrain externalizes risk upward to larger patrons, trading strategic maneuverability for protection. This approach offers short‑term stability but reduces Bahrain’s ability to hedge as the regional order fragments.

Oman occupies a quieter middle ground. Like Qatar, Muscat prioritizes mediation, but it does so through deliberate low visibility and strategic restraint. Omani diplomacy is characterized by neutrality, confidentiality, and avoidance of high‑profile military entanglements, allowing it to act as an intermediary without becoming a primary target. This combination has enabled Oman to preserve autonomy with comparatively lower exposure.

Kuwait, meanwhile, adopts a strategy of institutional caution. Its foreign policy emphasizes international law, neutrality, and multilateral legitimacy, shaped in part by domestic constitutional constraints and a historically empowered legislature. Kuwait avoids both alliance leadership and high‑risk mediation, focusing instead on predictability and restraint as a means of survival.

Taken together, these cases highlight the narrowing options available to small states in a region increasingly defined by unilateral force and competitive alignment. Flexibility, dependence, invisibility, and restraint each offer partial protection—but none fully insulate against a security environment in which traditional guarantees no longer reliably constrain escalation.

The Emergence of an “Islamic NATO” and Hexagon Alignment

Out of this environment has emerged what is increasingly described as an Islamic NATO‑style alignment, anchored by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, with Turkey as a central pillar. This bloc is often misunderstood as a purely anti‑Iran coalition. In reality, it is built on three overlapping threat perceptions.

First is Iranian asymmetry: missile forces, drones, and proxies that threaten energy infrastructure and regime stability. Second is U.S. unpredictability—the fear that American military decisions, often aligned closely with Israeli objectives, could entangle Muslim states in wars they neither seek nor control. Third is Israeli strategic autonomy, particularly as Israel demonstrates a willingness to strike across borders without regard for Arab diplomatic calculations.

The Pakistan–Saudi defense agreement reflects this logic. Pakistan offers nuclear credibility and conventional depth; Turkey provides expeditionary experience, NATO interoperability, and drone warfare expertise; Saudi Arabia contributes financial resources and diplomatic weight. Together, they form a deterrence architecture designed less to confront Israel directly than to prevent Muslim states from being involuntary participants in U.S.–Israeli campaigns. This bloc is therefore as much about autonomy as opposition.

Parallel to the perceived Islamic NATO is a looser but influential alignment in infancy, centered on Israel, India, and potentially UAE—often described as a Hexagon Alliance when extended to include additional partners. This bloc is driven by a different hierarchy of threats and economic incentives. For Israel, the priority remains Iran, but also the risk of regional isolation should Sunni states consolidate into a unified security framework. India views the Gulf through the lens of maritime security, energy flows, and competition with China. The UAE sees in this alignment a way to offset Saudi leadership ambitions while retaining access to Israeli technology and U.S. strategic networks. This bloc is not primarily anti‑Islamic. It is anti‑consolidation. Its purpose is to ensure that no single Sunni‑led alliance can dominate the region’s security architecture.

Greater Israel as a Strategic Disruptor
One of the most destabilizing factors shaping alliance behavior today is not a military doctrine, but a narrative: the re‑emergence of the idea of Greater Israel. While not an official policy of the Israeli state, the concept—rooted in religious‑nationalist ideology and echoed by influential political figures—has gained unprecedented visibility during and after the Gaza war. Regional actors interpret this discourse as signaling a rejection of territorial finality and Palestinian sovereignty. Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye have documented how references to biblical borders and permanent Israeli control “from the river to the sea” have triggered alarm across Arab and Muslim capitals.

The destabilizing effect of the Greater Israel narrative is threefold. First, it reframes Israeli military action as potentially expansionist rather than defensive. Second, it undermines the political sustainability of normalization agreements by making it harder for Arab leaders to justify cooperation without a Palestinian resolution. Third, it reinforces the perception that U.S. power in the region is structurally aligned with Israeli territorial objectives rather than regional stability. Even states aligned with Israel, such as the UAE, hedge against this uncertainty. Others respond by accelerating independent deterrence mechanisms.

Great Power Rivalry and the Turn to Hedging

The Islamic world is no longer a passive theater of Great Power rivalry. It is actively shaping a multipolar order in which Middle Powers hedge against everyone—including their allies. The Saudi–UAE split, the rise of Islamic NATO and Hexagon formations, the disruptive force of the Greater Israel narrative, and the quiet advance of China and Russia all point to the same conclusion: the era of uncontested security hierarchies in the Middle East is over. What replaces it is not stability, but agency. And in a region long defined by external control, that may be the most consequential shift of all.

As regional blocs multiply, China and Russia benefit not by conquest but by optionality. China’s deepening involvement in South Asia and the Gulf—through infrastructure, security arrangements, energy, and industrial investment—positions Beijing as an indispensable economic partner to all sides without entanglement in regional wars. Russia, meanwhile, offers selective military alternatives, reinforcing a multipolar security environment in which no single actor dominates. Neither power demands ideological alignment; both profit from fragmentation.

Who Are These Alliances Really Meant to Counter?

The central question—who are these alliances meant to counter—has no single answer. They are not aimed solely at Iran, Israel, or the United States. They seemed designed to manage uncertainty in a system where all three generate risk. Iran threatens through asymmetry. Israel threatens through unilateral escalation and expansionist rhetoric. The United States threatens—not intentionally, but structurally—through unpredictability and alignment choices that subordinate regional interests to global strategy and balance of power calculations.

For Saudi Arabia, Iran is dangerous not only because of missiles and proxies, but because Iranian escalation reliably draws in U.S. and Israeli responses that Riyadh does not command. For the UAE, Iran is disruptive but manageable through deterrence, diversification, and diplomacy. For Israel, Iran is framed as an existential threat demanding pre‑emptive action. For Turkey and Pakistan, Iran is a competitor to be balanced, not annihilated.

Iran’s retaliatory attacks on U.S. bases in GCC states did not unify the region. Instead, they exposed the costs of hosting American power. Gulf monarchies found themselves targeted not for their own actions, but for decisions made in Washington and Tel Aviv. As the Carnegie Endowment has noted, this dynamic has pushed Gulf states toward independent security thinking rather than deeper reliance on U.S. guarantees. In this sense, Iran functions less as the architect of regional order than as its accelerator—forcing others to adapt. The alliances forming across the Islamic world appear to be alliances of insulation, not crusades. They seek to preserve autonomy, reduce exposure, and prevent any single power from dictating outcomes.

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The post Geopolitics Of Islamic World And Middle Power Alliances After Iran Attack appeared first on Politact.

By Arif Ansar

Context

In the aftermath of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021—formalized through the Doha Accords of 2020—South Asia has entered an entirely new and volatile phase. The Taliban’s return to power, their continued lack of international recognition, and the deepening conflict along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have collectively reshaped the region’s geopolitical contours. What once was envisaged as an American “peace deal” has since evolved into a crucible of power rivalries, ideological contestations, and security dilemmas extending far beyond Kabul.

Amid this changing landscape, Washington finds itself confronting an old question in a new era: What strategic interests does the United States still have at stake in Afghanistan? This question gained renewed urgency after the tragic shooting near the White House on the eve of Thanksgiving in 2025, when Rahmanullah Lakanwal—a former Afghan supporter of U.S. forces who immigrated under the Protect America Operation—opened fire, killing two National Guard members. The attack, still under investigation, reignited the debate about the consequences of U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan and the enduring ripple effects of America’s two-decade military presence.

To assess these evolving dynamics, The Middle East Institute (MEI) collaborated with PoliTact to host a Webinar in November last year to explore these aspects centered around the evolving situation of Afghanistan and if merits a fresh policy and approach. Earlier in May, soon after the four-day conflict between Pakistan and India, MEI also conducted a discussion with regional experts to assess President Trump’s policy towards Taliban. Both discussions were moderated by Dr. Marvin Weibnbaum, the Director of Afghanistan-Pakistan Center.

Through these deliberations, a sobering consensus emerged: the U.S. has abandoned its nation-building ambition, replacing it with a strictly transactional and selective engagement guided by short-term counterterrorism and strategic interests. This shift marks a watershed in South Asian geopolitics—one in which regional powers like Pakistan, India, China, and Russia are recalibrating alliances, while the Taliban’s regime struggles to define its sovereignty amid growing internal fractures and international isolation.

Counterterrorism and Pragmatism

According to panelists such as Joshua White and David Sedney, Washington’s current strategy toward South Asia is driven not by ideology or doctrine but by political expediency. The United States, still wary of being drawn into another endless conflict, now prefers “quick interventions that can be framed as political wins” without the burden of prolonged commitments. At the heart of this approach lies counterterrorism (CT)—the only enduring U.S. interest in Afghanistan. The Taliban, Washington, and Pakistan paradoxically, share a common adversary: the Islamic State–Khorasan Province (ISKP). While formal cooperation remains limited, intelligence coordination to prevent ISKP attacks has emerged as a rare channel of pragmatic engagement. Adjunct Professor at George Town University, Doug London, underscored this convergence, observing that neither Washington nor the Taliban can afford an al-Qaeda-style attack “with fingerprints all over Afghanistan.” Thus, even hostile actors find themselves bound by mutual survival instincts.

Another dimension of U.S. engagement is transactional diplomacy—a pragmatic mechanism aimed at resolving targeted issues such as hostage recovery and retrieval of left-behind military assets. As former Afghan ambassador Javid Ahmad explained, these dealings often blur ethical lines; American captives have been freed in exchange for concessions, including the removal of Haqqani Network bounties. Similarly, billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure and equipment left during the withdrawal remain part of simmering behind-the-scenes negotiations—either to buy back through intermediaries like Pakistan or to ensure their destruction to prevent exploitation.

Pakistan’s position in this matrix is particularly complex. While the U.S. remains a visible interlocutor, Islamabad’s deepest strategic alignment continues to be with China. Pakistan leverages Washington’s engagement as a counterbalance against overreliance on Beijing. According to the panelists, efforts to “reset” U.S.-Pakistan relations on the basis of trade, minerals, and counterterrorism cooperation may refresh dialogue but are unlikely to override hard security realities.

Human Rights and the Counterterrorism Dilemma

The Taliban’s domestic policies, particularly toward women and civil society, continue to complicate U.S. engagement. As Lisa Curtis observed, the regime has demonstrated “no change in policies” from its 1990s practices—the repression of women and stifling of dissent remain total. This poses a moral and strategic crisis for Washington: how to cooperate on counterterrorism while refusing to legitimize a regime that flagrantly violates human rights.

Curtis argued that sacrificing principles for intelligence access risks undermining long-term stability, as repression fuels extremism by creating ungoverned spaces ripe for recruitment. Yet London countered that, in practice, the U.S. often cooperates with regimes that commit abuses when it aligns with national interests, effectively separating human rights advocacy from realpolitik.

The delicate balance between moral credibility and strategic necessity defines Washington’s Afghan dilemma—where human rights concerns, while loudly voiced, often take a back seat to the imperatives of terrorism prevention.

The TTP Factor

When U.S. troops exited Afghanistan, many in Pakistan assumed the Taliban’s ascension would enhance Islamabad’s regional leverage. Instead, the opposite has occurred. The enduring ties between the Afghan Taliban and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have emerged as the central source of cross-border friction, destabilizing Pakistan more than any external actor.

Since the short but intense four-day war between Pakistan and India in May 2025, border skirmishes between the Taliban and Pakistani forces have intensified, reflecting a broader regional unraveling. Analysts such as Sedney describe these clashes as a subtext of the larger India-Pakistan rivalry, with each side using Afghan soil as a pressure valve for strategic signaling. Yet a full-scale Taliban-Pakistan war remains improbable. Pakistan’s military, with its overwhelming technological and nuclear superiority, could decimate Taliban forces—but at the risk of provoking a drawn-out insurgency it cannot control. The Taliban, aware of this asymmetry, prefer hybrid tactics, allowing the TTP to wage low-intensity proxy warfare inside Pakistan.

The Taliban dismiss Islamabad’s demands to curb the TTP, calling it a “domestic problem”. This refusal underscores their ideological kinship and the shared ambition to see Pakistan’s border tribal belt revert to Taliban-style Sharia governance. Ahmad warned that this dynamic is perilous: the TTP’s suicide battalions possess the capacity to incite urban terror within Pakistan, amplifying the country’s internal vulnerabilities.

Behind these clashes lies a larger ideological project—the Taliban’s belief, shared by TTP hardliners, that regional power is shifting back to the “Islamic Emirate” model. Sedney noted that radical circles envision a future, within a generation, where Pakistan and even India could see Taliban-like movements ascend. Whether delusional or strategic, this belief animates the persistence of militancy and shapes Islamabad’s deepening anxiety.

US Leverages and Pakistan’s Regime Change Dilemma

The question of whether the U.S. or Pakistan can leverage internal Taliban factionalism looms large. Within the movement, a pragmatic Haqqani network faction favors economic engagement and limited U.S. cooperation, while the isolationist Kandahar faction, led by Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, rejects dependency and seeks autonomy. Although tensions exist, Akhundzada maintains ultimate control, preventing visible fragmentation that might invite civil war. For Pakistan, frustration with the Taliban’s defiance has sparked talk of supporting Afghan resistance groups. Yet Ahmad warns this path is fraught: funding insurgency would demand resources, while the disunited Afghan opposition lacks both cohesion and stamina.

Consequently, Islamabad’s strategy has shifted from influence to contingency—exploiting Taliban divisions when advantageous, but no longer betting on a “friendly” Kabul. As White put it, the myth of a compliant, pro-Pakistan “Pashtun leadership” in Afghanistan has always been just that—a myth. This reality has spurred a profound shift in mindset within Pakistan’s government. No longer divided between the “good Taliban” and “bad Taliban,” Islamabad increasingly sees a spectrum of “bad and worse Taliban.”

At an event held at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in February, 2022, the Special Representative for Afghanistan at the time, Tom West, had discussed the economic leverages US still holds and commented that Afghan Taliban has shown the least interest in future cooperation with the US in fulling the terms of their side of the Doha Accord. At the same time, West noted that US is not supporting any opposition to Afghan Taliban and is advising other nations to refrain from that, but some will do that sooner or later if Taliban does not show urgency. Answering a question, he commented that many players are realizing that not having US engagement in Afghanistan is not in their interest.

Regional Rivalries and Great Power Calculus

Beyond the Pakistan-Taliban binary, regional power competition has turned Afghanistan into a geopolitical chessboard once again. None of the major powers—China, Russia, India, or the U.S.—wants a total state collapse, yet each pursues a distinct agenda. India, for its part, has pivoted sharply. As Curtis noted, New Delhi is now actively courting elements within the Taliban to undermine Pakistan’s influence. The May 2025 conflict with Pakistan demonstrated India’s willingness to strike deep into Pakistani territory, signaling a readiness to rewrite the traditional escalation playbook.

Meanwhile, China and Russia tread cautiously. For Beijing, the overriding concern is protecting multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) investments from militant spillover. Russia, despite its history of confrontation with Islamist movements, maintains unpublicized CT cooperation with the Taliban to prevent ISKP’s expansion into Central Asia. Trump’s renewed engagement with Central Asian leaders under the “C5+1 initiative”—focused on strategic minerals—has further rattled Moscow and Beijing, who view it as U.S. encroachment upon their regional sphere of influence.

Panelists such as White and Karp noted that China now holds more extensive economic leverage in both Pakistan and Afghanistan than any other actor. Despite attempts to mediate between them, Beijing’s balancing efforts have faltered. Nonetheless, economic interdependence has rendered China an unwilling stakeholder in both states’ stability.

For the Taliban, the Great Power rivalry offers an opportunity. In an assessment, PoliTact noted last year: “As Afghan Taliban celebrate 4^th year in power, the nation now finds itself at a crossroads of competing currents. The net effect is a cautious, multi-prong stance: keep Iranian channels open for trade and energy, nurture Indian economic alternatives through Chabahar, avoid burning bridges with Pakistan as it courts Washington, and remain pragmatically receptive to Chinese infrastructure where it serves Afghan interests.”

Javid Ahmad observed, the regime seeks “economic neutrality,” extracting benefits from all sides while avoiding puppeteering by any. Pragmatic factions engage Russia and China for investment; hardliners in Kandahar, wary of foreign intentions, prefer cautious distance. This balancing act defines Kabul’s foreign policy—a tactical survival strategy that keeps all powers interested, but none dominant.

Containment Over Resolution: The U.S. Strategic Dilemma

Dr. Weinbaum summarized the prevailing expert view succinctly: “There is no military solution to the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict—only conflict management.” After decades of direct engagement, the U.S. now acts as a remote balancer, occasionally intervening diplomatically but avoiding deep entanglement. Washington’s immediate goal is not victory, but containment: preventing Afghanistan’s collapse while denying extremist sanctuaries the freedom to orchestrate global terror. This means sustaining aid and limited engagement but conditioning every form of support on verifiable security behavior.

Panelists urged regional coordination involving China, Turkey, and Qatar, whose economic leverage could pressure the Taliban to restrain the TTP. However, as Karp pointed out, both Turkey and Qatar’s favoritism toward Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated movements complicates their credibility as neutral mediators.

Ahmad cautioned that the U.S. must abandon the pursuit of ideological “unicorns” and embrace pragmatic realpolitik—dealing with actors as they are, not as Washington wishes them to be. The mantra, he argued, should be “leverage first, ideals later.” Delayed engagement only increases risks of ungoverned chaos, but overreaction could trap the U.S. in another open-ended quagmire.

The Perpetual Balancing Act

As of 2025, U.S. policy in South Asia has evolved into a delicate balancing act—a calculated choreography between engagement and restraint. America’s current presence is limited but consequential: intelligence links, sporadic negotiations, and cautious cooperation with regional allies. Yet looming questions remain. If Afghanistan once again becomes a safe haven for transnational terrorist networks, what tools does Washington have to respond? Under Trump’s renewed mandate, analysts predict the U.S. would double down on counterterrorism partnerships—especially with Pakistan and India—to prevent another 9/11-style surprise.

However, as India’s outreach to the Taliban deepens, it risks entrenching the very militant alignments that destabilize Pakistan and jeopardize U.S.-Pakistan rapprochement. Such dynamics may inadvertently revive the ideological monster once defeated by the War on Terror. Moreover, the Taliban’s tacit encouragement of TTP demands—such as reversing Pakistan’s merger of tribal areas and enforcing Sharia law—threatens to seed an insurgent domino effect. This could erode Islamabad’s internal cohesion and ripple across borders, complicating U.S. peace efforts from Gaza to Central Asia. Trump’s Taliban policy would require broader public ownership of Pakistan’s CT strategy and preventing the budding India-Afghan ties from destabilizing Pakistan and the rejuvenated US-Pakistan ties.

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Convergences in US Pakistan Ties and Afghanistan – Jan 1, 2024
Pakistan’s Afghan Dilemma And TTP – Feb 22, 2023
Post Withdrawal Campaign Against Extremism In Afghanistan And US-Pakistan Relations – Sep 7, 2022
Emerging US Policy Towards Afghanistan After Withdrawal – March 2, 2022
Recalibrating The US-Pakistan Partnership In Afghanistan – Jun 22, 2021
US-Pakistan Relations And Afghanistan Under Biden – Mar 2, 2021

The post The Future Of Afghan Taliban-Pakistan Conflict: Implications For Regional Stability And US Interests appeared first on Politact.

How Putin’s Visit, Venezuela Crisis, and Shifts in the Middle East and Afghanistan are Testing New Delhi’s Foreign Policy

By Furqan Khan
Great Power Politics Fellow

When Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi in December last year to attend the 23rd annual India-Russia summit, expectations were ripe for breakthrough agreements in energy and defense. Yet, despite the two countries agreeing to expand economic cooperation and reaffirming their “special and privileged strategic partnership,” no concrete measures were announced in advancing energy and defense cooperation.

Putin’s visit, however, came at a crucial time when the United States is pressing Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine, while India’s relations with Washington are under strain. At the same time, continued US pressure on India’s purchases of Russian crude, the imposition of punitive tariffs, and America’s renewed engagement with Pakistan have pushed India to seek alternative partnerships. This happens alongside a broader shift in American strategy, reflected in the Trump administration’s newly announced 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), which signals a shift away from the allied-centric leadership to a more transactional, burden-sharing approach.

When viewed against these systemic shifts, Putin’s visit holds greater strategic value for both Moscow and New Delhi, even when the tangible outcomes were limited. Based on the recent developments in January, specifically the US military operation and the subsequent “US-controlled” oil framework, the Venezuela crisis has become a critical lever in US-India relations.

Symbolism – Not So much Substance

Putin’s visit, first by the Russian President since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, attracted widespread attention. Although the two leaders met elsewhere, including in Moscow and Tianjin in 2024 and 2025, respectively, this visit holds a distinct strategic significance. The two countries signed agreements on pharmaceuticals, critical minerals, and tourism, and also finalized an economic cooperation arrangement to increase their bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030. However, the summit was more significant for what was not announced: oil and weapons deals.

Putin expressed readiness to supply “uninterrupted shipments” of fuel to India; however, New Delhi remained cautious about the offer. According to the Indian foreign secretary, decisions by Indian oil companies are driven by the “evolving market dynamics” and “commercial issues” they confront while sourcing their supplies, signaling US sanctions as a potential challenge. Similarly, defense cooperation also fell short of expectations. There were reports that weapons sales would be on the agenda of President Putin’s visit. In particular, the defense ministers from both sides were expected to discuss the timely delivery of the remaining units of the S-400 air defense system, which India purchased from Russia in 2018. Potential collaboration on the joint production of the next-generation S-500 system was also on the cards. However, no such agreements were finalized.

India was likely concerned by the potential repercussions of any high-profile defense deal over its already strained relations with the US, especially when New Delhi is working to negotiate a favorable trade deal with Washington.

Nonetheless, despite the absence of a substantive breakthrough, Putin’s visit was a symbolic show of strategic recalibration in the face of the American pressure. Greeting Putin with a red carpet offered India an opportunity to display its strategic autonomy and signal that India’s relationship with Russia is far from over. For Putin, as he is navigating tough negotiations to end the war, the visit signaled that despite Western attempts to render Russia a pariah, it still has friends of global significance. Therefore, even though fewer concrete steps were taken, the visit pumped energy into their “special and privileged strategic partnership.”

Testing the Strength of India-Russia Relations

Putin-Modi talks were watched closely in Washington, where sanctions are testing the strength of this bilateral relationship. The Trump administration has been pressuring Kremlin to end its nearly four-year war in Ukraine, while urging India to stop buying Russian oil, after accusing New Delhi of indirectly financing the war. Trump’s advisor Peter Navarro even called it “Modi’s War,” highlighting the significant rise in India’s purchases of Russian crude, from 0.2 percent before the war to 40 percent today. Consequently, the Trump administration imposed a whopping 50 percent tariff on Indian imports, of which 25 percent is punitive for buying Russian oil and weapons.

India has become the second-largest importer of Russian oil, after China, and more than a third of its oil imports have come from Russia over the past three years. However, this appears to be changing after the American sanctions recently targeted Russia’s two biggest oil giants, Rosneft and Lukoil, which might affect Indian oil companies, some of which have already stopped buying Russian oil. However, the decision to halt oil imports appears to be a temporary move by New Delhi to adjust for a favorable trade deal with Washington. During Putin’s visit, Modi reiterated his careful position on the Ukraine war, saying that India is not neutral in this conflict but stands on the “side of peace.”

Trump’s New Strategic Blueprint in National Security Strategy (NSS-2025)

The Trump administration’s approach towards India and the broader Indo-Pacific region is reinforced by the recently announced NSS, which departs from the strategic competition narrative and recognizes the existence of other “stronger nations” as a “timeless truth of international relations.” It reduces Russia from an “acute threat” to a challenge of managing its relations with the European Union, and downgrades China from a “pacing challenge” to an actor with which the US seeks to balance its economic relationship, avoiding the term strategic competitor. Nonetheless, the strategy expresses a commitment to “work with allies and partners” to preserve the balance of power.

For the last two decades, the American grand strategy has focused on preventing the rise of China as its peer competitor, in which India has been a critical partner. This seems to be changing under the new strategy, which expects India and other allies to address their challenges on their own under the burden-sharing principle. This shift indicates a potential erosion of India’s strategic exceptionalism in America’s strategy that New Delhi has enjoyed over the last two decades.

This shift in strategy is also reflected in the diminishing role of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) – a four-member Indo-Pacific alliance of Australia, Japan, India, and the US, which is losing its momentum. The NSS mentions Quad only once, while calling for improved commercial relations with India to “encourage New Delhi to contribute more” to the Indo-Pacific security. However, described as “more strategically aligned than ever before ” a year ago by President Biden, Quad has drifted into uncertainty under President Trump. Last year’s Quad summit, scheduled to be hosted by India in November and which Trump was reportedly reluctant to attend, did not go through, as India-US relations unraveled.

Trump has apparently broken Biden’s policy of strategic altruism that considered support for India’s major power status consistent with the US national interest. The current approach has been more transactional with the expectation of a direct quid pro quo.

Given these signals, India appears to be adjusting its diplomatic engagement in a hedging mode. Putin’s visit is part of that strategy, but it does not end in Russia. In September 2025, Modi was seen exchanging warm gestures with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tianjin, both rejecting the notion of rivalry and instead calling each other development partners. China-India trade relations have also improved steadily over time since 2005, even though the US remains India’s largest trading partner. However, many in New Delhi believe that this is not a desirable position for India, one that it does not seek but is forced into by the Trump administration’s policies. At the same time, Washington has criticized India’s BRICS membership for the bloc’s revisionist ambitions against the West.

Against this backdrop, India’s rapprochement with China, and rolling out the red carpet for President Putin can, at best, ensures strategic autonomy for New Delhi without affecting the foundational basis of Indo-US strategic partnership.

US-India Ties and Pakistan

These regional and global shifts have significant consequences for South Asia, particularly as Trump’s embrace of Pakistan in recent months factors into India’s strategic calculations. The way Trump and his advisors have publicly criticized Modi’s government, especially after the May conflict with Pakistan, Modi’s diplomacy is also guided by a sense of political liability, where conceding to the US demands risks domestic political backlash.

After the India-Pakistan conflict in May, following a terrorist attack in Pahalgam (Indian administered Kashmir) last year, Pakistan credited Trump for the ceasefire and backed his nomination for the Nobel Peace prize, unlike India, which refused to give a similar credit. Trump’s reaction to the Pahalgam attack was a break from the past American presidents, who supported India and pressured Pakistan to crack down on militants allegedly operating from its soil. Instead, Trump showered praise on Pakistan’s civil-military leadership, credited Islamabad for the ceasefire in Gaza, and invested heavily in the country’s untapped critical minerals reserves.

Additionally, America’s defense cooperation with Pakistan, which India has consistently opposed, especially the recent US approval for the sale in support of Pakistan’s F-16 fleet worth $686 million, is likely to be received poorly in New Delhi. Washington has justified close defense cooperation with Islamabad as essential to counterterrorism, saying that the sale will “not alter the basic military balance” in South Asia. Taken together, the growing US tilt towards Pakistan potentially revokes Indian monopoly over Washington’s South Asia policy, creating space for Pakistan to maneuver while encouraging New Delhi to seek partnerships away from the US.

Evolving Middle East and Afghanistan

India’s foreign policy is also facing challenges in the evolving geopolitics of the Middle East and Afghanistan. The nation maintains good relations with both Russia and Iran, yet it is also growing its ties, particularly in the defense sector, with Israel, which puts New Delhi in a critical position to navigate this balancing challenge. This dilemma is also visible in the recent tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Yemen, where Iran is a major actor. As India’s energy, trade, and diaspora interests are deeply embedded in the Gulf states, navigating the conflict between the Gulf states as well as maintaining its relations with Israel and Iran becomes a critical challenge.

On the other hand, while only Russia recognizes the Taliban regime in Kabul, India is also expanding its ties with the Taliban regime in Kabul, recognizing the latter’s strategic relevance vis-à-vis Pakistan. This has happened in parallel to Pakistan’s continuing loss of leverage in Kabul, driven by the Taliban regime’s inability to crack down on anti-Pakistan terrorist groups in Afghanistan. These dynamics, along with the changing great power alignment in South Asia, are creating a complex regional environment for both India and Pakistan.

Conclusion

Putin’s visit to India was not a breakthrough in the India-Russia bilateral relationship, yet it occurred at a crucial time of global strategic recalibration. The 2025 NSS presents a new blueprint for the US foreign policy, one that downplays the Russia and China threat while calling for greater burden-sharing from allies and partners, including India, to preserve the balance of power. This, when read alongside the transactional turn in Washington’s approach towards New Delhi over the last few months, signals that the period of strategic altruism for India is eroding.

By welcoming Putin in New Delhi and opening up to China, India adopted a hedging approach rooted in strategic autonomy. The message from India is clear: it neither aligns exclusively with Russia nor allows the Western pressure to dictate its policy choices. This is also visible in India’s approach towards the Middle East, where it is faces the balancing challenge of maintaining competing ties in the Middle East and Afghanistan as it also maintains good relations with Russia and Iran. Particularly with the US, as Washington’s approach turns transactional under the Trump administration, the upward trends seen in US-India relations over the last two decades face a potential erosion.

Moreover, the Venezuela crisis has given Washington the leverage it lacked previously. It is resolving the “India-Russia oil problem” by creating a “India-Venezuela solution”—but one that keeps the remote control firmly in the White House. The White has indicated that it will permit India to buy oil from Venezuela under the newly unveiled system.

As India begins to lose its privileged position in Trump’s strategy, at least in the near term, space opens for Pakistan, which was previously sidelined given New Delhi’s centrality in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Irrespective, Trump’s NSS is only an intent and not a concrete policy shift, which warrants cautious scrutiny to assess its potential impact on the future of South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region.

Related Articles

The Unbroken Alliance: Why the Afghan Taliban-TTP Nexus Is Dooming Peace with Pakistan – Nov 4, 2025
India-Pakistan Ceasefire And The Way Forward – May 22, 2025
Great Power Rivalry And China’s Deepening involvement In South Asia, Gulf States – Aug 4 2023

The post The End Of Strategic Altruism: Putin’s Visit And The New US-India Reality appeared first on Politact.

By Naade Ali

President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) are redefining the U.S.-Saudi alliance to address China’s rising influence and the Gaza crisis, effectively moving the partnership beyond its traditional foundations. Since their inception, the Saudi-US relations have experienced fluctuations but have been sustained by overlapping strategic interests and mutual dependencies. At the center of their crucible of interaction stood a security–petrodollar arrangement. Even when relations hit their lowest point, the core bargain held: Saudi Arabia continued selling oil in dollars and remained a key supplier to the United States, while Washington preserved its role as the Kingdom’s primary security guarantor and leading defense provider.

However, shifting global dynamics, fueled in part by intensifying great power competition between China and the United States, have pushed middle powers like Saudi Arabia to reduce their dependence on any single major actor and seek greater strategic autonomy. While this shift has broadened their ambitions, it has also uncovered greater opportunities and challenges. The Saudi-US relations are not indifferent to these evolving dynamics, with both countries recalibrating their bilateral ties along new strategic dimensions.

Saudi Arabia as a Swing State in the U.S.–China Rivalry

Today’s Saudi Arabia appears to be hedging away from over reliance on the United States, building a strategy centered on its pragmatic interests and exercising sovereign leverage. This helps in deal-making and to secure the space needed to navigate the great power rivalry. Saudi Arabia’s move to reduce its dependence on the United States gained momentum exactly when ties with Washington soured under the Biden administration. Confronted with the unpredictability of American policy, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) found an attractive alternative in Beijing, which offered strategic engagement without preconditions. Closer ties with China enabled Saudi Arabia to pursue a multidimensional strategy, diversify its partnerships, and maintain the flexibility necessary to manage uncertainties in its relationship with Washington.

For China, Saudi Arabia became a central pillar for expanding regional influence in the Middle East. Riyadh hosted the first-ever China-Arab States Summit and, through Beijing’s mediation, reconciled diplomatic ties with Tehran. Further consolidating their ties with Beijing, both Tehran and Riyadh also integrated into multilateral blocs where China and Russia hold considerable sway, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. Additionally, China strengthened economic relations with the Kingdom, becoming its largest trading partner and providing robust support for Vision 2030. A major payoff of Saudi Arabia’s strategic pivot toward China was that it transformed Saudi Arabia into a geopolitical swing state. This effectively signaled to Washington it is fully prepared to deepen ties with Beijing unless the U.S. proactively restores its coveted central role.

The Trump–MBS Summit: A Strategic Inflection Point

President Trump’s extraordinary embrace of Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to Washington in November suggests that Riyadh’s calibrated swing-state posture is working. Riyadh now carries significant geostrategic weight and has taken center stage in the U.S.–China competition for influence in the Middle East.

Trump’s approach to strategic competition with China rests on two pillars: credible deterrence and tightening of alignment with key U.S. middle power partners. Within this framework, any complete Saudi drift into Beijing’s orbit is viewed as strategically unacceptable. At the same time, he is acutely aware of the practical limits of attempting to sever Riyadh’s growing relationship with Beijing, recognizing that containment of China cannot succeed solely through coercive pressure on allies to reverse course.

As evidenced by President Trump’s foreign policy conduct, he employs a distinctive blend of generous incentives and far-reaching, exclusive agreements in energy, critical minerals, technology, and defense. These arrangements simultaneously fortify bilateral partnerships and allow middle powers, such as Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to maintain a semblance of strategic autonomy in their relations with China. Beneath this veneer, however, the United States methodically secures alignment on matters of vital national interest, while deliberately imposing significant strategic costs on any partner that leans excessively toward Beijing.

Nevertheless, Trump’s transactional foreign policy has provided Saudi Arabia with an opportunity for adjusting its own strategy, allowing the Kingdom to pursue a more robust, interest-driven relationship with Washington. Riyadh recognizes that being a center of the Islamic holy places provides it immense influence in the Muslim world. United States relies on it not only to balance China in the Middle East but also to help secure a stable regional environment for Israel. This is a goal that, in Trump’s view, could be advanced if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords, potentially encouraging other Arab and Muslim countries to follow suit.

The Summit Outcome

Through Vision 2030 reforms and skillful diplomatic maneuvering, the Kingdom has transcended its traditional role. This transformation not only redirects the calculus of their bilateral partnership but also carries profound implications for the Middle East’s balance of power and the broader dynamics of great power competition. It has emerged as a pivotal regional powerhouse whose energy resources, vast investment capital, and geopolitical influence make it indispensable to both Washington and Beijing.

During their meeting, President Trump stated he was “the best friend Saudi Arabia has ever had in Washington,” a statement that highlighted his administration’s desire to deepen ties through personal rapport. Nevertheless, the agreements concluded between the two leaders demonstrate that the U.S.-Saudi relationship remains firmly grounded in their respective national interests and strategic imperatives, with both seeking to extract maximum advantage.

President Trump secured a $1 trillion investment pledge from the Crown Prince, alongside the signing of a Strategic Framework for Cooperation. This framework includes Saudi commitments to supply uranium, metals, permanent magnets, and critical minerals essential for U.S. defense and energy sectors. Leveraging Saudi Arabia’s vast deposits of rare earth elements (REEs), Trump advanced his goal of countering China’s dominance in critical minerals.

For his part, Crown Prince achieved major strategic gains: the Kingdom was granted major non-NATO ally status, a defense agreement was finalized, and approval was secured for the purchase of American F-35 fighter jets and other advanced weapons. These acquisitions will strengthen Saudi defense architecture. Additionally, in line with its ambition to become a global hub for artificial intelligence, Saudi Arabia also gained access to advanced AI chips and U.S. technology firms to support the development of its domestic AI infrastructure.

US-Saudi Ties and Gaza Peace Plan

The Washington meeting between President Trump and the Crown Prince highlighted both progress and persistent challenges in U.S.–Saudi relations, with Saudi-Israel normalization remaining a key point of divergence. While Trump pressed Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, Mohammed bin Salman insisted that any normalization depend on Israel committing to “an irreversible, credible, and time-bound path toward Palestinian statehood.” Following the Israel–Gaza conflict, Riyadh has emerges as a leading advocate for international recognition of Palestine, a position consistently opposed by the U.S. and Israel. Its refusal to yield to Trump’s push for normalization reflects the broader post-war realities in Gaza.

By taking this stance, Crown Prince delivered a twofold message: First, the strengthening of U.S.–Saudi ties must remain entirely independent of any precondition for Saudi–Israeli normalization. Second, while Riyadh is open in principle to normalization, Israel’s refusal to recognize Palestinian statehood remains a major impediment. While Riyadh supports the Trump Gaza peace plan in principle, it rejects full Israeli control over the Gaza territory and insists on concrete conditions: a time-bound Israeli withdrawal, the deployment of an international protection force, and the reinstatement of authority to the Palestinian Authority.

Saudi Arabia’s demands on the Palestinian issue clash directly with Israel’s red lines, leaving Washington struggling to balance relations with both capitals. From Israel’s viewpoint, the rapidly deepening U.S.–Saudi partnership, explicitly decoupled from any obligation of Saudi–Israeli normalization, raises two profound concerns. First, it risks elevating Riyadh’s regional influence while undermining Israel’s primary strategic objective: the expansion of the Abraham Accords. Second, as long as Riyadh continues to regard Israel as a principal source of regional instability, not Iran, the possibility persists that Saudi Arabia could further deepen its relations with Iran.

Historically, the shared enmity toward Iran has been the bedrock of both the U.S.–Israel alliance and U.S.–Saudi security relations. Following their China-brokered détente, Riyadh and Tehran no longer see each other as existential threats. To prevent Washington from viewing improved Saudi–Iranian ties with alarm, Mohammed bin Salman has carefully framed them as potentially beneficial to the United States, offering to help the U.S and Iran reach a deal that could be vital to regional stability. Riyadh can indeed encourage Iran to talk, but persuading Tehran to accept U.S. terms is no less daunting than U.S. convincing Israel to meet Saudi demands on Palestine. The scenario thus exposes the limits of influence on both sides: neither Washington nor Riyadh can fully impose their will on Israel and Iran.

The Washington summit also revealed a deeper convergence: the United States and Saudi Arabia need each other to achieve their core objectives in the Middle East. Under the Trump approach, US appears willing to delegate primary responsibility for preserving and enforcing the U.S.-led order in the Middle East to Saudi Arabia. However, for Riyadh to fully assume the role of America’s pre-eminent regional partner, it will also have to bear the main burden of protecting U.S. interests, containing rivals, and upholding the existing regional architecture.

Such an alignment would signal to Iran that Saudi Arabia had become the de facto guarantor and enforcer of core American interests. A U.S.–Saudi power-sharing arrangement would also carry significant implications for Israel. Confronted with a region increasingly shaped around Saudi primacy, Israel would face a stark choice: either challenge Riyadh and risk damaging its own relationship with Washington, or accommodate Saudi terms and move toward normalization on conditions set by the Kingdom. Under this approach, in which Saudi Arabia and the United States emerge as mutually reinforcing strategic partners, both are able to secure the outcomes they seek from Iran and Israel.

The Saudi-UAE Rivalry and Yemen Conflict

As the new year begins, the region is no longer defined by “Arabs vs. Iran” or “Islamists vs. Monarchies,” but by the fallout of weakening Iran that is creating a power vacuum. Muslim Middle Powers are competing to to fill the space, illustrated by the Saudi-UAE split. In places of old alliances, new ones are taking shape premised on cold, transactional game of national interest. And these tensions are playing out from Yemen to Syria, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia.

While the Trump-MBS summit secured vital U.S. interests in energy and defense, it exposed the fragility of the broader regional architecture. Saudi Arabia is acting like a state, prioritizing borders, stability, and institutions to protect Vision 2030. The UAE resembles a corporation, prioritizing ports, trade routes, and resource extraction. Turkey and Qatar are navigating the space between them, leveraging their military and ideological assets to carve out their own spheres of influence.

Similarly, President Trump’s “20-Point Peace Plan,” unveiled in September 2025, was predicated on a unified regional architecture: Gulf capital would fund reconstruction, Egyptian-Turkish logistics would secure the ground, Pakistan-Indonesia-Turkey may be part of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), and Israeli-Saudi normalization would provide the political horizon.

As of late December 2025, the dramatic rupture between Saudi Arabia and the UAE—culminating in the Saudi airstrike on UAE-backed assets in Mukalla, Yemen—has shattered the “Sunni Coalition” prerequisite for the plan’s success. The 20-point framework is now being pulled apart by the competing power centers and Israel may find itself the short-term beneficiary of Arab fragmentation. Unless Washington can repair the rupture within the Gulf Cooperation Council, its grand strategy for the Middle East risks becoming a two-legged stool: supported by a strong U.S.-Saudi bilateral deal, but lacking the regional stability required to stand.

Related Articles:

Israel Airstrike Targets Hamas Negotiators In Doha, Threatening Gaza Ceasefire Talks – Sep 15, 2025
Gaza Ceasefire Plan And US-Iran Tensions – April 26, 2025
Two-State Solution, Future Of Gaza, And Iran – February 25, 2025
Assad’s Demise And The Shifting Balance Of Power In Middle East – Dec 26, 2024
The Escalating Middle East Crisis And President Elect Trump – Dec 5, 2024
Iran’s Potential Retaliation For Haniyeh’s Killing And Wider Consequences – Aug 30, 2024
The Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project: Economic and Geopolitical Realities – Sep 27, 2024
Great Power Rivalry And China’s Deepening involvement In South Asia, Gulf States – Aug 4, 2023
What Does President Biden’s Visit To Israel And Saudi Arabia Imply? – Aug 4, 2022

The post Saudi Arabia as a Rising Middle Power: The Trump-MBS Summit, China, and the Future of Gaza appeared first on Politact.

The post What Does Afghanistan, Pakistan Conflict Mean For Regional Stability And US Strategic Interests? appeared first on Politact.

PoliTact’s Analysis of Perceptions and Perspectives

With inputs from Naade Ali and Arif Ansar

Context

Since the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, there was a perception the installation of Afghan Taliban in Kabul will make Pakistan’s regional influence grow. However, Afghan Taliban-TTP nexus continues to bedevil the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains the central source of friction and a key driver of the persistent cross-border violence. There is no indication that the group has endorsed the ceasefire reached in Istanbul; its ongoing attacks suggest that it remains active despite the interstate truce. The next round of talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan are scheduled for November 6 in Istanbul.

Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban of providing support and sanctuary to the TTP, designated as a terror group by both UN and the U.S., while Kabul dismisses these allegations. Qatar and Turkey are closely observing the ceasefire, marking their first substantive involvement in mediating between Islamabad and Kabul after previous efforts—including those led by China—failed to achieve meaningful results. While the agreement commits Pakistan to refrain from launching strikes inside Afghanistan, it does not neutralize the TTP threat. Under the deal, Pakistan is expected to avoid cross-border operations but retains the right to target TTP militants attempting to infiltrate its territory.

For the Afghan Taliban, the ceasefire offers a degree of peace and reduces the risk of cross-border strikes. However, relinquishing support for the TTP is not a decision that rests with any single Taliban leader, not even the defense minister. The authority to determine the Taliban’s stance toward the TTP lies solely with their Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. There have been no reports to date indicating that he has issued any directive against the group. Although the ceasefire may temporarily pause the infiltration of TTP militants from Afghanistan into Pakistan, it could simultaneously prompt the group’s factions within Pakistan to become more active, fighting independently in the absence of reinforcement from their Afghan counterparts.

Why do Afghan Taliban Support TTP?

The Afghan Taliban’s support for the TTP stems from their shared combat experience, religious ideology, and tribal ties. The TTP’s leadership has sworn allegiance to the Taliban’s Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, granting the group significant autonomy to operate without interference from the Kabul-based Taliban faction.

This arrangement allows the TTP to pursue strategic and geopolitical objectives on behalf of the Taliban, such as challenging Pakistan’s control over territories beyond the Durand Line, which the Taliban considers part of Afghanistan. The Durand Line, a colonial-era border, remains a contentious issue, as the Afghan Taliban rejects its legitimacy, fueling tensions with Pakistan. Despite the recent Afghanistan-Pakistan agreement emphasizing mutual respect for territorial integrity, ambiguity persists regarding both sides’ interpretations of their sovereign boundaries.

Afghanistan’s Defense Minister, Mullah Yaqoob Mujahid, recently described the Durand line as an “imaginary border”, reinforcing the impression that the Afghan Taliban do not consider it a legitimate border. Similarly, the Deputy Interior Minister Nabi Omari expressed hopes of reclaiming “Afghanistan’s old lands” currently under Pakistani control, stating, “By Allah’s will, this land will return to us.”

It is important to note that, unlike the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), which directly challenges Taliban rule, the TTP does not pose an immediate threat. Instead, it contributes to the Taliban-led Afghan economy by purchasing weapons and sharing profits from smuggling, extortion, and other illicit activities, making the TTP a significant stakeholder in Afghanistan’s economy. In fact, TTP also acts as a Taliban ally against ISKP.

While Al Qaeda (AQ) presence in Afghanistan has significantly diminished, the most significant evidence of continued ties with the Taliban was the U.S. drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in July 2022 in a safe house in Kabul. In the February 2020 Doha Agreement with the U.S., the Taliban pledged to prevent international terrorist groups, including AQ, from using Afghan territory to threaten the U.S. and its allies. However, evidence strongly suggests the Taliban leadership has violated this pledge.

Disarming these battle-hardened TTP militants, who lack alternative livelihoods due to their combat-focused skill set, appears to be a costly and complex endeavor for the Afghan Taliban. Fully integrating them into Afghan security forces could also undermine the Taliban’s public denials of supporting the TTP and risk internal discord.

The present circumstances suggest that the Taliban have chosen to continue supporting the TTP, enabling them to focus on external rather than internal operations. Moreover, by continuing this backing, raises serious questions about the Taliban motivations and world view. Irrespective, this risky strategy jeopardizes the Taliban’s pursuit of international recognition and complicates their relations with Pakistan.

The Key Demands of TTP

While the TTP’s focus has tactically shifted over the years (for instance, limiting attacks on civilians after 2018), their fundamental goal remains the enforcement of their interpretation of Sharia and the withdrawal of the state’s writ from Pakistan’s merged tribal areas. Based on their stated objectives presented during past negotiations, the key demands of the TTP include:

1. Implementation of Sharia

The TTP’s long-term goal is the establishment of a state based on its own strict interpretation of Islamic law (Sharia), mirroring the system of the Afghan Taliban.

2. Restoring Autonomy and Demilitarization

The TTP demands the reversal of the 2018 constitutional amendment that merged the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. The TTP seeks to restore the semi-autonomous or independent status of these tribal regions.

A frequent demand is the complete withdrawal of the Pakistani military and security forces from the tribal belt (the former FATA and surrounding regions), allowing the TTP to establish control and implement its own governance system.

3. Prisoner and Amnesty Demands

The TTP consistently demands the release of all its imprisoned members and commanders held by Pakistani authorities. This has often been a precondition for engaging in ceasefires or peace talks. The group demands full amnesty for its fighters who have committed acts of terror against the Pakistani state and its citizens.

Pakistan’s Evolving Policy Towards Afghan Taliban and TTP

Pakistan has long tried to convince Afghan Taliban to act against the TTP. While Afghan Taliban offered to facilitate talks between TTP and Pakistan and relocate it from the border regions – it has restrained from taking any serious actions against it. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government had sought Afghan Taliban assistance in pacifying TTP, resulting in a ceasefire that fell apart in November 2022 – and resumption of TTP attacks against Pakistan. The TTP demands related to release of prisoners were also met to some extent. On the other hand, their requirements of decreasing the number of security forces in FATA – and rescinding of FATA merger are more complicated.

The situation now seems different. By conducting military strikes in Afghanistan and killing dozens of Taliban fighters, Islamabad has set a new precedent, signaling that the Afghans must face consequences for supporting its enemies. Though, Pakistan’s carrot-and-stick strategy was designed to change the Taliban cost-benefit calculus, forcing them to choose between Pakistan or TTP. To date, the Afghan Taliban have chosen the latter, a course they may continue to follow, as tensions with Islamabad neither threaten their domestic control nor hinder their growing engagement with other regional actors, including India.

The Taliban has yet to craft an effective framework to regulate the TTP, restrict its autonomy, or halt its cross-border operations. Instead, growing friction with Pakistan has only deepened the alignment between the two. Afghan Deputy Minister of Interior Affairs, Mawlawi Muhammad Nabi Omari, was reported to have issued a stark warning to Pakistan, stating that if Afghan tribes and the nation declare Pakistan an invader by religious decree, “by God, you will not find safety even up to the Indian border.”

These anti-Pakistan sentiments cast doubts about the Afghan Taliban intentions. The combined pride of the Afghan Taliban and TTP in their perceived triumphs over major powers like the U.S. and NATO, and in reclaiming Afghanistan after decades of war, reinforces their determination and stubbornness.

Afghan Taliban support alone does not fully explain the TTP’s survival and expansion. A significant portion of its fighters are disenfranchised and radicalized youth from Pakistan’s impoverished regions, particularly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. In a security briefing to KP lawmakers, the provincial police chief once revealed that around 4,000 militants, including 35% Afghan nationals, were operating in the province, often blending in with civilians by day and carrying out attacks at night.

A belief reportedly exists within the TTP that, with support from local tribes, it can seize Pakistani territory by force and eventually transform from a non-state actor into a legitimate state actor, like their Afghan counterpart. This perception boosts the morale of its fighters and encourages the group’s continued expansion. These characteristics truly indicate that TTP aspires for a space from where Afghan Taliban can extend their reach.

Pakistan’s security establishment accuses India of using Afghanistan as a base for launching terror operations against Pakistan – and the availability of modern weapons in Afghanistan has enhanced militants’ capabilities. At the same time, the military recognizes that Pakistan’s terrorism problem is not purely external but also internally facilitated. In his recent remarks, Pakistan Army Chief urged Kabul to prioritize mutual security over ongoing violence, calling on the Afghan Taliban regime to “rein in the proxies who have sanctuaries in Afghanistan.”

An Alliance of Ideology vs. State Necessity

The current crisis surrounding the ceasefire reveals a fundamental and seemingly unresolvable conflict: while Pakistan demands the Afghan Taliban choose state necessity (diplomatic recognition and regional trade) over ideological loyalty, the leadership in Kabul has consistently chosen the latter.

The TTP is more than just an operational proxy; it is a vital ideological ally and an economic stakeholder that reinforces the Afghan Taliban’s own anti-state identity and vision for a borderless Islamic Emirate. Pakistan’s previous posture of limited intervention in Afghanistan, coupled with the TTP’s growing recruitment base among disenfranchised Pakistani youth, means that Islamabad’s carrot-and-stick strategy has failed to alter the Taliban’s calculus.

While the Pakistani government has previously pursued political solutions, the TTP’s extremist demands and uncompromising approach have rendered sustained negotiations nearly impossible. The current strategic pivot toward a military approach—which carries the inherent risk of seeking regime change in Afghanistan—is equally unlikely to yield a long-term roadmap. For any military pressure to be effective, it must be integrated with political steps that foster public ownership and address long-held local grievances. This sophisticated, multi-pronged strategy offers the best chance to definitively dismantle the Taliban-TTP nexus.

Any attempt at regime change is heavily contingent upon securing the explicit support of key regional players, most notably China. A full-scale war directly jeopardizes substantial Chinese investments, particularly those under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and risks creating a dangerous new front amid Pakistan’s ongoing tensions with India. Furthermore, escalating border conflicts are likely to severely complicate the recent reset in U.S.-Pakistan relations, which is premised on cooperation in trade, strategic minerals, and technology.

Internationally, being mired in internal and border conflicts would significantly erode Pakistan’s capacity to play a credible regional role, hindering its ability to support allies like Saudi Arabia or contribute to broader stability efforts, such as a Gaza peace plan. Even with powerful backing from both China and the U.S., attempting to alter the ethnic balance of power within Afghanistan remains an extremely high-risk gamble that could easily spiral into a prolonged, devastating civil war.

In the absence of a truly sophisticated methodology—one that moves beyond binary military or political options—Pakistan risks becoming entangled in a protracted proxy guerrilla warfare within an era of escalating great power rivalry. The recent Istanbul ceasefire, therefore, provides only a temporary and fragile pause. This strategic impasse casts a long, enduring shadow over the future of South Asian security.

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