The military man trying to save US-Iran peace talks

For a two-time spymaster, Pakistani army chief Asim Munir has taken a conspicuous approach to brokering a long-elusive deal between the US and Iran.

Soon after chairing the arch-foes’ most important meeting in decades this month, Munir spent several days in Tehran, wielding a “swagger stick” denoting military rank and changing between fatigues and a dark blazer as he engaged with not only Iran’s political leadership but its security forces and Revolutionary Guards.

All the while, Munir — Pakistan’s most powerful figure — was in touch with the White House by phone, said people close to the field marshal. He has built on an invigorated US-Pakistan relationship forged through amorphous mineral, cryptocurrency and Manhattan real estate deals, as well as Islamabad’s nomination of US President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.

With little experience in previous US-Iran negotiations, Pakistan has surfaced as a surprise lead mediator, but faces its biggest test after attempts to revive talks foundered this week. Munir has joined a long line of intermediaries, from European nations to Qatar and Oman, that have tried — with limited success — to broker a resolution to the longstanding US-Iranian enmity.

The Pakistani approach differs sharply from previous mediators in talks over Iran’s nuclear programme, such as the almost two years of tortuous negotiations in Geneva and Vienna that sealed the 2015 nuclear accord that Tehran signed with the Obama administration. 

European officials mediating that deal were also pursuing their own states’ interests, as they would be party to the deal. All teams depended on large teams of experts hunkered down for hours. Trump later scrapped that agreement.

Munir, for his part, has combined links to Iran’s security establishment with personal ties to the mercurial US president, who last week called him “fantastic”. He also has “good connections” with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and “understands their language”, said Ali Vaez, an Iran specialist at the International Crisis Group think-tank.

Vaez said that by spending days in Tehran, engaging with both diplomats and the military establishment, Munir was trying “a whole-of-the-system approach to mediation”. “It does help with creating consensus, because there’s no power centre [in Iran] that feels left out,” he said.

Munir’s efforts to get the warring parties back to the negotiating table hit a deadlock on Tuesday when Iran resisted pressure to return to Islamabad for talks with the US.

That setback underscored the scale of Munir’s task as he contends with deep distrust between the foes. His efforts have been hampered by Trump’s insistence that a US naval blockade on Iranian ports will remain until a deal is agreed, as well as Tehran’s refusal to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump did agree to extend the ceasefire, citing a request from Munir and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. But there has been little progress on key points of contention: Iran’s enrichment programme and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Pakistani officials insist they are still working to bridge the divides. But Munir must contend with the unpredictable and belligerent US president, and a highly suspicious, hawkish regime in Tehran that believes it has the upper hand.

“It’s the perennial problem of who is going to blink first,” said Vaez. “Unless Trump rows back the [US naval] blockade, I don’t see how the Iranians would agree to participate.”

Most past mediators between the US and Iran have failed to deliver lasting results. After Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal during his first term, the EU and so-called E3 — the UK, France and Germany — later facilitated indirect talks between the Biden administration and Tehran but failed to revive the accord. 

When Trump returned to office and decided to hold indirect talks with Tehran, Oman became the key facilitator. But Trump wanted a quick deal and demanded Iran give up its ability to enrich uranium — a red line for Tehran. Twice during talks, Trump ordered attacks on the republic.

After Trump launched the latest war in February, Gulf states found themselves under fire and Pakistan jumped into the diplomatic fray.

Islamabad has deepened its relationship with Tehran, despite the two sides exchanging cross-border strikes in 2024. Pakistan’s intelligence services have closely collaborated with the Revolutionary Guards to stamp out Baloch separatists and smuggling routes along the shared 900km border, said Pakistani officials.

During his stints heading Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the military intelligence wing, Munir became familiar with Iran’s various power bases. This month, he visited Iran’s joint military command headquarters in Tehran and met its head, Major General Ali Abdollahi.

The field marshal’s ascent into Trump’s orbit has been more improbable, helped by a flurry of US-Pakistan dealmaking and Pakistan’s refusal to criticise the president during the war on Iran, even as it condemned Iran for its attacks on Gulf states.

Munir proposed to act as a go-between last summer shortly after the US joined Israel’s 12-day war against Iran to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, said people familiar with the conversations. At that time, he had recently met Trump and attended a meeting with the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The field marshal has also met Zach Witkoff, the son of US special envoy Steve Witkoff, at least twice, and Pakistani officials have signed deals with the younger Witkoff’s Trump-backed crypto venture World Liberty Financial.

That relationship put Pakistan “on Steve’s radar”, said one Pakistani official, and helped build a working relationship between Munir and Trump’s advisers. 

But undergirding Pakistan’s charm offensive, said current and former Pakistani and US officials, is also an enduring fear that Trump may turn on Islamabad, tighten sanctions on its ballistic missile programme and remove a $7bn IMF bailout.

Munir must also contend with Iran’s wariness of Pakistan’s role, analysts say, linked to Islamabad’s dependence on the US and relations with Saudi Arabia, with which Pakistan signed a mutual defence agreement last year.

“Pakistan is not truly a neutral party in this,” says Farzana Shaikh, associate fellow at Chatham House in London. “It has a patron-client relationship with the US and Gulf states, and a vested interest in foreclosing Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon.”

Much of its population sympathises with Iran, particularly the 40mn-strong Shia minority, but “the political interests of the military establishment most clearly converge with those of the US”, Shaikh said.

In Tehran, there have been growing fears that the US is using the talks as a ruse to resume the war, as Trump maintained the naval blockade and boasted this week that Iran had agreed to most of his demands.

Tehran ridiculed Trump’s comments, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s lead negotiator, said this week it would not negotiate “under the shadow of threats”.

“In Tehran, they would have given him [Munir] a difficult time, and questioned why he was pushing so hard for mediation — was it genuine or was he part of a ruse to get them to bring their guard down,” said Vali Nasr, a former US official and professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Nasr said the Pakistanis were serious interlocutors, “but what they can’t deliver is any guarantees on Trump’s behaviour”. “They can’t say we promise the US won’t do A, B, C,” Nasr said. “And there’s nothing Munir can do about that.”

Munir knows the Revolutionary Guards and could speak “the language of military to military”, Nasr added, but he did “not have a deep relationship with them”.

After Munir returned to Islamabad last week from Tehran, Pakistani mediators told the White House and regional allies that they were confident Iran would attend talks, said two people familiar with the matter.

In anticipation, authorities locked down swaths of the city and deployed thousands of rangers. Hoping for an interim agreement, they prepared to plaster Islamabad with signs celebrating an “Islamabad Peace Deal”, said one official.

When those efforts faltered, Pakistani officials made no public comments about Trump’s naval blockade — Iran’s key sticking point — and instead appeared to blame Tehran. “Pakistan has made sincere efforts to convince the Iranian leadership to participate,” the government spokesperson wrote on X.

Islamabad took a similar approach when Israel’s continued offensive against Hizbollah in Lebanon threatened to derail the US-Iran ceasefire. Sharif had publicly stated — in line with Iran’s interpretation — that Lebanon was included in the truce. But Islamabad did not openly push back against the US and Israel’s assertion that it was not, as Israel launched a huge bombing campaign in Lebanon.

Instead, Munir, Sharif and foreign minister Ishaq Dar privately urged the US and European governments to press Israel to halt its assault, said people familiar with the situation.

Pakistan’s outward silence raised questions about Islamabad’s neutrality within Iran and countries supporting mediation efforts, said two regional diplomats.

Trump’s rants on Truth Social denigrating Iran, his threats to wipe out its “whole civilisation” and claims that Iran had begged for a deal had also made the process much more difficult, they said.

“They [the Trump administration] are reckless,” said one diplomat involved in the Pakistan-led back-channel.

Vaez said Pakistan’s role was also hampered by its deference to Trump and his desire for quick results. US vice-president JD Vance’s 21-hour trip to Pakistan earlier this month pales in comparison with the 19 days that former US secretary of state John Kerry spent in Vienna hammering out the 160-page 2015 nuclear accord.

“So far, the Pakistanis are mostly trying to convince the Iranians to accommodate the American position and not necessarily trying to come up with creative ideas on how to bridge the gaps,” he said.

“They are not as experienced as the Qataris or Omanis, and they are prone to trying to urge one side or another to show flexibility — rather than coming up with solutions of their own.”