It’s a “Major Non-NATO Ally” located in proximity to the mission area and thus capable of providing logistical support at a minimum with the expectation that its formidable armed forces and nuclear weapons would deter Iranian retaliation if their shared Chinese partner is unable to disabuse it.
Andrew Korybko
Trump announced that the US will immediately begin blockading the Strait of Hormuz together with unnamed countries after the Islamabad talks ended without a peace deal due to Iran’s unwillingness to compromise on its nuclear program in his telling.
It’s very possible that one of the unnamed countries that’ll assist in
the US’ blockade of the strait is Pakistan. This is due to it being a
“Major Non-NATO Ally” located in proximity to the mission area and thus
capable of providing logistical support at a minimum.
Pakistan
has formidable armed forces and nuclear weapons, so Iran might be
deterred from striking it, unlike nearby Oman which it hit multiple times
during the Third Gulf War despite the country earlier mediating talks
with the US due to its infrastructure allegedly being used by the US
during the conflict. There’s a lot of sympathy for Iran in Pakistani
society, especially among its huge Shiite minority, but its de facto
military leadership and their civilian puppets have behaved very obsequiously towards Trump.
It’s
therefore unlikely that they’d deny any request from him to provide at
least logistical support such as by allowing US ships to resupply from
Pakistani ports. Such a request might have already been made and agreed
to as suggested by Pakistan’s military positioning in recent days after
it deployed fighter jets to Saudi Arabia as part of its mutual defense obligations.
In light of the US’ blockade, Pakistan’s possible support role therein,
and the possibility of Iranian retaliation, this might be for
deterrence purposes.
Iran knows that Pakistan wouldn’t leave any strike unanswered after their tit-for-tat bombings
in January 2024 that were carried out by each against the other on
anti-terrorist grounds. This time, however, Pakistan might not
prioritize escalation control due to the completely different regional
military context. The potential bombing of its ports could worsen the
country’s already serious economic crisis and thus represent a threat to
its de facto military leadership that might prompt an outmatched
response instead.
If the ceasefire
doesn’t hold, then Iran might also resume its attacks against Saudi
Arabia, but Saudi Arabia might respond this time and request that
Pakistan back it up in compliance with their alliance. If Trump carries
through with his threat to destroy Iran’s power plants and oil
infrastructure, then Iran will execute its own threat to destroy the
Gulf’s, the sequence of which Saudi Arabia might have assessed as likely
and thus preemptively requested the deployment of Pakistani fighter
jets for deterrence purposes.
Of course, it’s also possible
that Iran doesn’t interfere with the blockade so long as the US doesn’t
resume hostilities since Iran could reroute real-sector trade with
China via Central Asia, which Beijing might request so as to avoid the
abovementioned sequence of losing access to all the region’s oil. If
forced to choose, it would rather only lose Iran’s, yet it’s unclear
what China could offer Iran to get its leadership and especially the
IRGC’s to reconsider their religious embrace of martyrdom in that
scenario.
China already reportedly pressed
Iran to compromise with the US by agreeing to the ceasefire, and if
that’s true, then China might be able to press Iran not to interfere
with the blockade too so that Trump quickly transitions it to a partial
one against only Iran and not the US’ own Gulf allies as well. In that
case, Pakistan wouldn’t experience any Iranian retaliation for assisting
with the US’ blockade, but it could still provoke huge protests that
its de facto military leadership might have to resort to lethal force to
quell.