Agent47

This could be the offramp the world needs. You can think of it as the best outcome for everyone, under the circumstances. (1) From MAGA’s perspective, if Trump declares victory here and moves on, the US won’t waste yet more blood and treasure in the Middle East. It won’t invade Iran. It also won’t take all the blame for the ongoing global supply chain crisis. It just pulls out and lets everyone work out the regional security equation for themselves. Trump can say he’s fulfilled both his campaign promises: stop Iran from getting a nuke, but also no endless Middle Eastern wars. (2) From Israel’s perspective, Iran has now been shown to be quite hostile to its neighbors, and its military has been substantially degraded. Stopping now is good. Otherwise there’s a danger of overreacting to Oct 7 as Americans overreacted to Sept 11. Israel can stand back and call it a win, because after a US pullout, Iran will have much less excuse for holding the Strait hostage. (3) From the Iranian diaspora’s perspective, it’s unfortunately clear that the current war isn’t going to result in liberalization. Further attacks would push Iran further into fundamentalism, making it even harder to eventually do a liberal reformation. (4) From the long-suffering Iranian people’s perspective, ending the war now would also save countless lives. Otherwise they’ll get hit by friendly fire and drafted by the regime to fight for fundamentalism. (5) Finally, from the world’s perspective, once the US declares victory and goes home, substantial diplomatic pressure will be applied to Iran to simply open the Strait of Hormuz and allow ships through. Iran’s leadership has shown, perhaps surprisingly, that they care about global public opinion…and they would be on the hook for the suffering of billions of people if the Strait remains blocked. TLDR: if Trump declares victory and leaves, Iran no longer has any excuse for blocking the Strait and holding the global economy hostage. Let the matter be worked out diplomatically with pressure from all the 100+ affected countries on Iran. America shouldn’t have to spend a single cent more, or send a single soldier more, to the Middle East.

“Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”

Iran has asked for guarantees in any deal with US. Word is that Pakistan Foreign Minister is going to Beijing to get a guarantor for the potential deal. Likely that is Iran’s condition for talks with US. And FM would not be going to China without having floated the idea with both Washington and Beijing. No guarantees of China biting but Beijing is now the frontline in the diplomatic effort

The women of India and Pakistan need to deploy our ingrained common sense and suggest ways forward in our relationship. We need a women’s caucus. Not to throw accusations against each other but to think calmly and sensibly about the future ahead. For the sake of our children. We need to bring in the counterpoint: without naming it, without sounding defensive, but making it impossible to dismiss. For decades, India–Pakistan engagement has been trapped in a single script: territory, terror, recrimination. We repeat it with ritual precision, but it yields diminishing returns. What if we widened the frame? In West Asia, especially the Gulf, our interests often run in parallel: energy security, diaspora welfare, maritime stability, crisis response. These are not abstractions since they affect millions of lives and the resilience of both economies. Engaging here need not dilute our positions, create false parity, or reopen familiar disputes. It can remain tightly bounded, issue-specific, and without prejudice to core differences. Skeptics will argue that Pakistan cannot compartmentalise, that any engagement risks being instrumentalised, and that peripheral cooperation has never altered core hostility. But the purpose here is not transformation, it is insulation. Not to resolve the conflict by other means, but to prevent it from defining all means. Some may also say Pakistan has found a “role” in the Iran crisis and India should not be seen as seeking one. But this is not about visibility or mediation. Our interests are structural not transitory. If anything, the moment underscores a larger truth: even adversarial states operate beyond their disputes when interests demand it. When the central track is blocked, responsible statecraft does not stand still. It explores parallel ones, carefully, deliberately, and on its own terms. Sometimes, widening the field is not weakness. It is strategy. The women must speak.