How Pakistan emerged as an indispensable actor in Middle Eastern security dynamics

For decades, the world assessed Pakistan through a narrow lens: a frontline state in the war on terror, a nuclear power locked in rivalry with India, a country defined by its instability rather than its influence. That lens was always too small, and the past year has proven it. The US-Iran war and its aftermath have done what years of diplomatic messaging could not: they have forced Washington, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi to recognise what Pakistan has quietly known for a long time: Pakistan is not a...