Vice President JD Vance sat across from Iranian representatives at the Bürgenstock luxury hotel on the shores of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, with Pakistan's Field Marshal Asim Munir helping broker the conversation. When a reporter asked Vance about Pakistan's role, his answer was brief and warm: "Very good, we love Pakistan."
That four-word endorsement marks a dramatic reversal from the posture President Trump himself struck just eight years ago, and it raises a question that deserves a blunt answer before Washington leans any harder on Islamabad: Can Pakistan actually be trusted to act in America's interest?
The first round of U.S.-Iran talks, mediated jointly by Pakistan and Qatar, concluded with what Vance called "great progress." A joint statement from the mediators announced that Washington and Tehran agreed to form a "High Level Committee" to oversee ongoing negotiations and a "de-confliction cell" to ensure a ceasefire in Lebanon. In a separate statement, Vance announced that Iran had agreed to permit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into the country, a key element of the emerging deal framework.
The diplomatic momentum is real. Newsmax reported that Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared his country was preparing for the electronic signing of a peace deal, saying, "We are closer to a peace deal than ever before." That prospective agreement would reportedly include the U.S. releasing billions in frozen Iranian assets and waiving sanctions on Iranian oil exports in exchange for Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump himself has spoken favorably of the Pakistani leadership's contribution. He told Axios over the weekend that Field Marshal Munir and the Pakistani prime minister "really helped us with this deal," adding: "It's a beautiful thing to see."
The praise is striking when set against Trump's own words from New Year's Day 2018. On what was then called Twitter, the president posted a message that could hardly have been more direct:
"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
Days later, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reinforced the message at UN headquarters in New York, accusing Islamabad of playing a "double game" with the United States. Just the News reported that Haley told reporters: "They work with us at times, and they also harbor the terrorists that attack our troops in Afghanistan. That game is not acceptable to this administration."
The Trump administration followed through by suspending millions in funding to Pakistan within days of those statements.
None of the underlying facts that prompted that funding freeze have changed. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has long been known to support the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan-based Haqqani network. The Taliban, in turn, maintained and deepened ties with Al-Qaeda even as it negotiated with Washington.
The most direct parallel to Pakistan's current mediator role is its involvement in the U.S.-Taliban negotiations that led to the February 2020 withdrawal agreement. The Trump administration relied on Islamabad's ties with the Taliban to bring the militant group to the table. The resulting deal set conditions for U.S. withdrawal in exchange for Taliban commitments not to harbor or support terrorists and to enter negotiations with the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
The Taliban kept none of those promises in any meaningful sense.
A United Nations Security Council report issued in June 2021 concluded that 2020, the year after the agreement was signed, was the "most violent year ever recorded by the United Nations in Afghanistan." The same report raised concerns that the Taliban's ties with Al-Qaeda had grown even closer since 2001, and estimated that as many as 10,000 fighters belonging to various militant groups remained in the country.
By August 2021, the U.S.-backed Afghan government had collapsed. The Taliban swept back to power. And Pakistani leaders celebrated. Then-Prime Minister Imran Khan, one day after the Taliban took Kabul, declared: "What is happening in Afghanistan now, they have broken the shackles of slavery."
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, drew a direct line from that failure to the current moment. He told Just the News:
"The Trump administration should've learned its lesson when it worked with the Taliban through Pakistani mediation. The U.S. used Pakistan as an intermediary with the Taliban, and that agreement was not worth the paper it was written on. The Taliban never lived up to those agreements."
Roggio's broader assessment was unsparing: "Like Qatar, the United States should never trust Pakistan to act in the United States' best interest."
Pakistan's reliability problem goes deeper than Afghanistan. It reaches into the heart of the very issue these Iran talks are meant to resolve, nuclear weapons.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the head of Pakistan's uranium-enrichment program at Khan Research Laboratories, confessed on Pakistani television on February 4, 2004, to transferring nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. IAEA investigators later uncovered records of a 1987 meeting between Khan and Iranian officials that included a written offer to sell nuclear technology, including the possible building blocks of a nuclear weapons program.
NBC News reported that the chief financier of Khan's network told Malaysian police that Khan had asked him to send two containers of used centrifuge parts from Pakistan to Iran in 1994 or 1995. Iran told IAEA investigators it declined to purchase some of the more sensitive technology used in the core of a nuclear bomb, a claim that remains unverified.
Pakistan's government admitted in 2003 that it "may have been the ultimate source for some of the sensitive nuclear equipment and knowledge required to start the program." It denied any official government role, attributing the transfers to scientists who may have acted out of "ambition or greed."
The consequences for Khan were negligible. The Pakistani government pardoned him by February 2004, the same month he confessed. Khan himself later said: "I saved the country for the first time when I made Pakistan a nuclear nation and saved it again when I confessed and took the whole blame on myself."
By the time Khan died in 2021, his image had been largely restored. He received a state funeral. Prime Minister Imran Khan called him "a national icon" and posted a tribute praising "his critical contribution in making us a nuclear weapon state."
Roggio characterized A.Q. Khan's support for Iran's nuclear program as "yet another reason not to trust the Pakistanis," adding that "it was pretty much brushed under the rug."
The current negotiations carry enormous stakes. Trump launched the war against Iran earlier this year, citing the threat of Tehran's nuclear program. The memorandum of understanding signed at Versailles set a 60-day window for nuclear negotiations, with the possibility of extension.
The Washington Examiner reported that Jared Kushner served as a U.S. envoy alongside Vance and Steve Witkoff at the Lake Lucerne summit, with Qatari and Pakistani mediators announcing the talks concluded in a "positive and constructive atmosphere." Working groups focused on nuclear issues, sanctions, and monitoring were established as part of a 60-day roadmap toward a final deal.
The path forward remains uncertain. Breitbart reported that Trump has threatened to charge U.S. tolls in the Strait of Hormuz if a final deal is not reached within 60 days. Iran's nuclear program dismantlement, war reparations, and missile program limits remain among the most contentious outstanding issues.
Iran's posture has been inconsistent. The New York Post reported that Pakistani sources described Tehran's public refusal to attend a second round of talks as mere "posturing to extract maximum advantage." Those same sources insisted that Pakistan remains "the sole trustworthy mediator", a self-assessment that deserves considerable skepticism given the record.
The volatility of the negotiating environment was on full display when peace talks collapsed earlier and Vance scrapped a planned Switzerland trip, with Trump declaring Iran "finished." That the talks resumed at all reflects the administration's determination to reach a deal, but also its willingness to rely on intermediaries whose interests do not always align with America's.
The Embassy of Pakistan to the United States did not respond to a request for comment.
No one disputes that Pakistan occupies a useful position. It has relationships with Tehran that Washington does not. It has intelligence channels, cultural proximity, and geographic relevance. And if the alternative is no talks at all, the administration's pragmatism is understandable.
But pragmatism should not require amnesia. Pakistan harbored the terrorists American soldiers fought and died to defeat. Its intelligence services supported the Taliban while American diplomats negotiated in good faith. Its national hero sold nuclear technology to the very regime the United States is now at war with, and Islamabad pardoned him, honored him, and buried him with full state honors. Trump himself has warned that any deal is not final and that strikes could resume if Tehran breaks its commitments.
Vance joked during the talks that the two most important people in his life are "an Indian and a Pakistani. The Indian is my wife, and the Pakistani is Field Marshal Munir." It was a warm, personal gesture. But warmth is not a strategy.
The question is not whether Pakistan can help broker a deal. The question is whether the deal will hold, and whether the country that sold Iran its nuclear starter kit is the right partner to ensure it does.
A mediator who played both sides in Afghanistan and helped arm the adversary in this conflict does not become reliable just because the talks are going well this week. Washington should use Pakistan where it is useful, and watch it like the record demands.
