Pakistan’s vital US-Iran peace efforts

US President Trump announ­ced in Wisconsin that the Iran war is “largely finished.” He explained that his goal is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and “the situation with Iran seems to be going quite well”. President Trump also said that he would be honoured to meet the Iranian Supreme leader if the US and Iran can make a deal. Despite occasional skirmishes and ambivalent Iranian signals, the optimism expressed by the US President indicates Washington hopes to eventually achieve enduring peace. This would not have been possible without the pivotal role played by Pakistan and Field Marshal Asim Munir in navigating the delicate peace process, despite landmines being laid throughout the process and across the region to sabotage it. Pakistan has played the leading role throughout this precarious peace process that faces complex challenges. For 47 years, the US viewed Iran as a threat to its regional interests and employed coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions to dissuade Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme and supported political activists opposed to the Iranian political system. However, two direct and major US and Israeli attacks within one year on Iran during Trump administration caused major damage to its infrastructure, killing thousands of people, including decapitation strikes on Tehran’s ideological, political, intelligence and military leadership. Although the Iranian political and security system seems to have absorbed these lethal attacks, it has also created a new security dynamic which poses more challenges to the diplomatic progress. Western military strategy traditionally assumes that decapitation of top political and military leadership can damage the political will of the adversary to wage war which can bring about a quick and decisive victory and help avoid a long and costly war of attrition. This approach seemed to work during World War II against Adolf Hitler, and later against the regimes of Saddam Husain, Muammar Qadhafi and