A satellite view of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global energy supply, connecting the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman [Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2025]The ongoing United States-Israeli war on Iran has thrust the Strait of Hormuz into the centre of a multidimensional geopolitical crisis. Since hostilities commenced in late February 2026, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has repeatedly threatened or targeted vessels, suspending transit through the strait. This has resulted in what the International Energy Agency has characterised as the most acute supply disruption in the history of the global energy market.
In this complex situation, three scenarios for what happens next emerge: Regional miliary action; joint international operation; and phased negotiations. Pakistan’s mediation – one of the few functioning diplomatic channels between Washington and Tehran – could play an important role in two of them.
This scenario envisions a coalition of regional states, principally the Gulf Cooperation Council members and Jordan, undertaking independent military operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without direct US operational involvement. This could be driven by protracted economic haemorrhage, the exhaustion of diplomatic options, or domestic political pressure to demonstrate state agency.
This scenario stumbles on the problem of “capability asymmetry”. While the Gulf states have invested substantially in the modernisation of their armies over the past two decades, they lack the integrated naval power projection, mine countermeasure capacity, and anti-air-defence capabilities to neutralise the layered asymmetric threat that Iran poses in the strait.
The stability of the military coalition is also under question: Each state has an incentive to free-ride on the military contributions of other members, particularly given the risks of Iranian retaliatory strikes on energy infrastructure.
More critically, unilateral regional action risks precipitating an escalation spiral: Iran’s doctrine of “forward defence” implies that any military pressure on the Strait of Hormuz would likely trigger commensurate pressure on Gulf oil infrastructure and population centres.
Pakistan has consistently cautioned against military escalation and sought to preserve diplomatic space to forestall such a scenario. Should it materialise without prior diplomatic engagement, Pakistan’s mediatory channel would likely collapse, removing one of the few remaining crisis management mechanisms.
A second scenario envisions regional states formally aligning with the US in a coordinated coercive military campaign to restore freedom of navigation, with full US operational leadership. The Gulf states would allow the US army to use their bases and provide political cover and supplementary military assets. Other states may also join.
This scenario falls within the established framework of coercive diplomacy, in which limited force is used to compel behavioural change without triggering an all-out war. In his work on coercive diplomacy, the late American political scientist Alexander George identified three conditions for success: Credible capability, the adversary’s perception of disproportionate costs, and an available face-saving off-ramp.
The counterproposal Tehran sent in response to the US 15-point plan for negotiations signals a bargaining posture rather than unconditional resistance. This suggests that the second and third conditions of coercive diplomacy may not be entirely absent.
However, Israel’s publicly stated opposition to a negotiated settlement and its concern that US engagement with Iran through intermediaries could undermine its strategic objectives could create tension within the coalition. This, in turn, could weaken its credible capability.
In this scenario, Pakistan’s role would shift from active mediator to diplomatic buffer, seeking to preserve communication channels even amid open hostility. Islamabad’s unique position of being able to communicate with both Tehran and Washington would make it an indispensable backchannel even within this militarised context.
Eventually, a hybrid approach could emerge, which involves sustained military pressure combined with a parallel track of indirect negotiations through Pakistan, designed to produce a face-saving Iranian withdrawal from the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for verifiable sanctions relief.
The third and most analytically plausible near-term scenario envisions Iran maintaining its grip on the strait while using the threat of sustained closure as leverage in negotiations with the US. This represents a classic instance of what American scholar Thomas Schelling termed “coercive bargaining”: The manipulation of shared risk to extract political concessions without committing to an all-out confrontation.
Iran’s selective de-escalation gesture on March 26, permitting vessels from China, Russia, India, Iraq, and Pakistan to transit the strait, is consistent with this scenario. By differentiating between states based on their political alignment, Tehran simultaneously demonstrates continued capacity to control access, rewards aligned states, and signals to Washington that full reopening remains contingent on political accommodation.
This constitutes what crisis bargaining theorists identify as a “limited probe”: A reversible concession designed to test adversary resolve without surrendering fundamental leverage.
Iran’s counteroffer, including demands for reparations and sovereignty over the strait, represents an extreme starting position from which concessions can be made while the appearance of firmness is retained.
This is the scenario in which Pakistan’s mediatory function is most consequential. The negotiations format under discussion in Islamabad represents precisely the kind of face-saving, high-level but indirect engagement that extended coercive bargaining requires.
A phased outcome linking partial sanctions relief to incremental strait reopening, reinforced by a multilateral navigation framework under United Nations supervision, represents the most institutionally durable resolution available within this scenario.
The three scenarios examined here do not represent mutually exclusive pathways but competing pressures operating simultaneously within the same crisis environment. The near-term trajectory will be shaped by the interaction between military capability, coercive signalling, and the structural availability of diplomatic off-ramps.
Of the three, the third scenario, in which Iran uses the closure of the strait as a sustained bargaining instrument while indirect negotiations continue, represents the most probable configuration, if Pakistan’s mediatory channel remains intact and the US-Israeli alliance does not fracture in ways that either end or radically accelerate military escalation.
Scenarios one and two remain contingent on the failure of diplomacy, and both entail disproportionate escalatory risks relative to the anticipated gains.
This crisis is not reducible to a binary between war and peace. It is a structured bargaining contest in which the conditions for a negotiated outcome, mutual vulnerability, available intermediaries, and face-saving mechanisms are present but fragile.
The preservation of Pakistan’s mediatory role, the de-escalatory posture of Gulf states, and the gradual narrowing of the bargaining gap between Washington and Tehran constitute the most realistic foundation for a sustainable, if partial, resolution.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
