'Military Superiority No Longer Guarantees Political Success,' Says Former Ambassador Durrani on US-Iran War

A seminar in Karachi organized by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs produced a blunt assessment of the US-Iran war's real lessons: that overwhelming military capability, on its own, has failed to deliver the political outcomes either Washington or Tehran wanted.

The core argument

Asif Ali Khan Durrani, Pakistan's former ambassador to Iran and the UAE and past special representative to Afghanistan, delivered the seminar's central address, titled "Beyond the Iran-US War: Changing Dynamics of Power in the Middle East." His thesis was direct: "Military superiority no longer guarantees political success." Durrani pointed to the practical evidence behind that claim, despite clear US military dominance and Israel's conventional military edge, neither power managed to compel Iran to abandon its core strategic positions, while Iran itself achieved a kind of resilience despite absorbing real economic and human costs from the conflict.

Four paths forward

Durrani laid out four possible trajectories for where the conflict goes from here. The first is renewed escalation, further missile exchanges and cyber operations that keep the war simmering without resolution. The second is a prolonged "cold peace," an uneasy standoff maintained through continued deterrence postures and sanctions rather than active fighting. The third is a comprehensive political settlement that would need to address both Iran's nuclear program and the sanctions regime built around it. The fourth, and most structurally ambitious, is an inclusive regional security architecture that would bring Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt into a shared framework rather than leaving the region organized around competing blocs.

Where Pakistan fits in

Durrani used the platform to make a specific pitch for Pakistan's diplomatic positioning, arguing the country holds a genuine advantage precisely because it maintains functional, constructive relationships across multiple competing regional and global powers simultaneously. His recommendation was that Pakistan should actively "build bridges" between these parties rather than aligning firmly with any single side in the broader confrontation, a posture that lets Islamabad retain credibility as a potential mediator rather than becoming just another party with a stake in the outcome.

Pushback and additional perspectives

Not every speaker at the seminar treated the moment as clearly transformative. Lt Col Dr Muhammad Ali Ehsan raised a pointed question about whether the war has actually created the conditions for a genuinely new Middle East order, or whether that framing overstates how much has really shifted. Dr Naeem Ahmed offered a more measured middle position, arguing the conflict has altered the specific dynamics of Gulf security arrangements without fundamentally displacing the broader US-led international order that has structured the region for decades.

Why this debate matters beyond academic circles

Seminars like this one matter less for producing consensus than for surfacing the range of frameworks regional policymakers are actually using to interpret an ongoing war that shows no clear end point. Durrani's four scenarios, in particular, function less as predictions than as a checklist policymakers across the region, including in Islamabad, are likely weighing as they decide how closely to align with either side, or whether pursuing an intermediary role, as Durrani urges for Pakistan, remains a viable path as the war grinds into its sixth month.

Whether Pakistan's diplomatic relationships across the divide translate into real mediating influence, rather than just rhetorical positioning, will depend heavily on which of Durrani's four scenarios the conflict actually moves toward in the months ahead.