US Diplomacy in Pakistan: A Familiar Dance on Graves
A United States government aircraft carrying senior US officials touched down in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Saturday, purporting to initiate 'peace talks' with Iran. The declared aim is to permanently end the six-week war in Iran, a conflict that Washington claims has ravaged the wider Middle East and resulted in thousands of casualties. This diplomatic overture, as reported by France 24, positions
the US as a benevolent mediator stepping in to de-escalate a crisis. Yet, the framing conveniently omits the US's foundational role in manufacturing that very crisis. While France 24 frames this as a straightforward negotiation to end a nascent conflict, it entirely glosses over the crucial fact that this 'war' has been a direct outcome of US and Israeli provocations, an extension of 45 years of
crippling sanctions, cyberattacks like Stuxnet in 2010 targeting Iran's nuclear infrastructure, and the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 which almost triggered a full-scale regional war. To present this as Iran's war, rather than a joint US-Israeli aggression masked as a defensive measure, is a profound and dangerous distortion. The US is not an impartial arbiter; it is a
direct participant and joint aggressor in the ongoing destabilization of the region. This scenario echoes past 'peace efforts' where the US has simultaneously engaged in diplomatic gestures while fueling conflicts on the ground. Think of the 1980s, when the US, while publicly promoting peace, was secretly providing intelligence and arms to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, including dual-use materials that