By: Salman Rafi Shiekh
Pakistan’s decision to join US President Donald Trump’s newly created “Board of Peace” is being framed in Islamabad as a humanitarian and diplomatic opportunity. Officials say the initiative is aimed at stabilising Gaza, delivering aid, and coordinating reconstruction. But beneath this technocratic language lies a profound strategic shift.
By signing up to a US-led structure that is explicitly designed to manage post-conflict territories and potentially deploy international stabilization forces, Pakistan risks entangling itself in future American military ventures in the Middle East, especially in a confrontation with Iran. What appears to be a peace initiative could become the first step toward a strategic alignment that exposes Pakistan to regional instability, strains its ties with China, and deepens domestic fault lines.
Pakistan formally accepted Washington’s invitation to join the Board of Peace earlier this year, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attending the inaugural meeting in Washington. The initiative was initially presented as a body to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction and governance after the war, but its mandate quickly expanded to address other global conflicts. Although official statements from Islamabad emphasise humanitarian goals – ceasefire, aid delivery, reconstruction, support for a two-state solution – the structure being discussed goes beyond diplomacy. Reports indicate that participating states may contribute funds and even personnel to an international stabilization force, underscoring the board’s operational, not merely advisory, character.
This evolution matters. Several countries have expressed concern that the body could sideline or undermine existing United Nations mechanisms. If the board becomes a parallel architecture for US-led stabilization efforts, membership will carry financial, political, and potentially military expectations. For Pakistan, that would mark a departure from its recent diplomatic posture. Over the past decade, Islamabad has tried to balance relations among the United States, China, the Gulf States and Iran, while avoiding entanglement in Middle Eastern conflicts. Joining a U.S.-led intervention framework risks undoing that balancing act.
The Iran Contingency
The most dangerous implication of Pakistan’s new alignment is not Gaza itself, but the precedent it creates. The Board of Peace is being framed as a global conflict-management body. If the United States escalates its confrontation with Iran, which seems increasingly likely, and sooner than later, the same institutional framework could be repurposed for post-conflict stabilization there. Ongoing US-Iran talks notwithstanding, the US military has already confirmed to Trump its readiness to attack Iran.
For Pakistan, such a scenario would be uniquely perilous. Unlike many Arab states, Pakistan shares a long land border with Iran. Any US–Iran conflict would not be a distant geopolitical contest but a neighboring war with immediate spillover effects, including but not limited to refugee flows, militant infiltration and cross-border instability. Participation in a US-led stabilization framework could transform Pakistan from neutral neighbor into perceived participant. Tehran would be unlikely to distinguish between states providing logistical, diplomatic, or military support to a US-led intervention.
This would also complicate Pakistan’s already fragile regional environment. It faces a tense relationship with India, an unstable frontier with Afghanistan, and an ongoing insurgency in Balochistan. A confrontation with Iran—direct or indirect—would mean strategic pressure from three of its four immediate neighbors simultaneously.
The China Factor and the Domestic Landscape
The alignment also risks unsettling Pakistan’s most important strategic partnership: China. Beijing has invested tens of billions of dollars in the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), much of it in Balochistan and other security-sensitive regions. Stability along Pakistan’s western frontier is therefore central to Chinese interests.
A US–Iran conflict would likely destabilize precisely those areas. Militant groups in Balochistan could find new opportunities for chaos, and cross-border tensions could threaten infrastructure and logistics corridors. For Beijing, that would reinforce existing concerns about Pakistan’s internal security and policy coherence, and Pakistan’s ability to manage threats.
At the domestic level, the risks are equally serious. Pakistan’s internal sectarian balance has historically been sensitive to regional Sunni-Shia rivalries. With about 20 percent of its population belonging to the Shia sect, the danger of an internal sectarian buildup is there. In early February, a suicide attack on a Shia Mosque in Islamabad during Friday prayers killed dozens of people, injuring more than 170.
A Partnership Built Around One Man
All of these risks are undertaken in pursuit of closer ties with Washington. But the current initiative appears unusually personalized around Donald Trump himself. The Board of Peace is a signature project of his administration, chaired by him and tied to his broader Middle East agenda. That raises a critical strategic question: how durable is this alignment? US foreign policy is highly sensitive to domestic political cycles. A shift in congressional control or a change in the White House could alter or even dismantle the initiative. Several countries have already expressed caution about joining the board, reflecting uncertainty about its legitimacy and longevity.
Pakistan, however, would not be able to unwind the strategic consequences so easily. If relations with Iran deteriorate, if insurgency intensifies along its western frontier, or if China’s confidence in Pakistan declines, those effects will persist long after any U.S. policy reversal.
Pakistan’s decision to join the Board of Peace doesn’t have to become a strategic trap, but only if Islamabad clearly defines the limits of its participation. At present, the initiative appears open-ended, with an evolving mandate and uncertain legal or political boundaries. That ambiguity is precisely what makes it risky.
To avoid deeper entanglement, Pakistan would need to draw firm red lines. It should restrict its role to humanitarian diplomacy, reconstruction support, and political mediation, while explicitly ruling out any military or stabilization commitments in conflicts involving neighboring states. Clear parliamentary oversight and public articulation of these limits would also help reduce domestic backlash and signal that the decision is not a blank cheque for alignment with Washington.
At the regional level, Islamabad must simultaneously reassure Tehran and Beijing that its participation in the board doesn’t signal a shift in its strategic orientation. Sustained diplomatic engagement with Iran, along with renewed focus on securing Chinese projects and addressing internal instability, would be essential to prevent the perception that Pakistan is drifting into a U.S.-centric security architecture.
Ultimately, Pakistan’s foreign policy has historically relied on balancing among major powers—most notably China and the US—rather than binding itself too closely to any one camp. The Board of Peace risks upsetting that equilibrium. Whether it becomes a diplomatic opportunity or a strategic liability will depend less on Washington’s intentions than on Islamabad’s ability to set limits, preserve regional relationships, and resist the pull of short-term alignments that carry long-term costs.
Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is a longtime commentator on diplomatic affairs for Asia Sentinel. He is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).