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The countries trying to broker an end to the Iran conflict — Oman, Pakistan, and Qatar — are themselves facing military attacks and economic strain from the war, an unusual dynamic that factors into the incentives and urgency behind their mediation.
Strait of Hormuz disruptions have hammered Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports and cut off much of Pakistan’s supply, and the broader economic slowdown is straining remittances from Pakistanis working in the Gulf. Qatar and Oman have also been attacked by Iranian drones and missiles.
With the continued risk of Tehran targeting Gulf energy infrastructure and economic livelihoods, efforts by the three countries to de-escalate are heightened “from a long-term goal to an immediate necessity,” said Talal Abdulla Al-Emadi, an energy law professor at Qatar University.
All three have the advantage of leveraging their strong ties with both Iran and the US to serve as more effective mediators. Oman has long played a quiet role in US-Iran diplomacy, while Qatar has facilitated backchannel negotiations and prisoner exchanges. Pakistan is relatively newer to such mediation, but has a history of serving as an intermediary, including between the US and China in the 1970s.
The countries are all pushing to resume talks during the United Nations General Assembly this week. Qatar is conveying messages between the parties, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said on Sunday in New York. But daily developments are “changing the course of the negotiations,” he said. “There is no clear master strategy that we are following in order to put an end to this. And that’s basically what we are missing today.”
In past crises, these mediators had little of their own physical infrastructure or revenue on the line. But in this conflict, the stakes are personal.
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Qatar’s trapped LNG
The war has put the foundation of Doha’s economy — energy sales — directly at risk. Before the conflict, Qatar exported almost one-fifth of the world’s LNG, all of it through the Strait of Hormuz. Very few shipments have made the trip since March, when Iran in effect shut the waterway.
Some oil tankers have made their way through the strait, but LNG tankers are a more troublesome target, according to Robin Mills, a non-resident fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and CEO of Qamar Energy. They are more flammable, expensive, and difficult to repair, making Qatar reluctant to risk sending them through the strait at all.
While there has been discussion of pipelines to eventually replace the strait, that won’t work for LNG or Qatar’s other exports: The government has decided not pursue alternate routes.
That gives Qatar a powerful reason to keep talks moving between Tehran and Washington.
“In the case of Qatar, so much is at stake for them,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “Their wealth, their future, everything is tied to the physical location where they’re located. The Qataris want to continue being mediators not because they like the Iranians, not because they give the Iranians a pass or forgive them — it’s because they don’t have an option.”
Pakistan’s vulnerabilities
Pakistan has a different set of vulnerabilities, but a similar incentive to push for an end to the conflict. The loss of LNG supplies from Qatar has forced the country to consider buying more expensive fuel or extend rolling blackouts in the evening.
Islamabad is engaged due to “the cost of staying on the sidelines,” said Rabia Akhtar, dean faculty of social sciences at the University of Lahore. “Pakistan had relationships it could draw on, and this conflict created an urgent reason to use them.”
While Pakistan is the rare neighbor of Iran that hasn’t been attacked, Islamabad recognizes the risks of a prolonged war in the region, she added: “‘It’s not my war’ offers very little protection. Pakistan does not have to enter the fighting to experience its consequences.”
Omani outlier
Oman’s exposure is different. Its oil and gas exports are flowing, and its economy has emerged as one of the region’s most resilient. The country was a hit a few times by Iran, and US President Donald Trump threatened Oman directly over its mediating role role, saying, “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.”
Muscat is “engaged in a balancing act of their own. They’ve been hit. They’ve been called names by the American president. So it’s a thankless job at times,” the Middle East Institute’s Vatanka said.
As the Trump administration wages its economic warfare against Iran, it has pressed Oman to cut financial ties with the regime. Those efforts have included dispatching a senior envoy to discuss ending Iranian airline Mahan Air’s flights to Oman, according to a Treasury Department spokesperson.
Room for Disagreement
For Oman, Qatar, and Pakistan, these economic and security costs may add urgency in their push to press all sides to a resolution.
Qatar’s economic interests don’t “complicate its neutrality” but “they are precisely what enables it,” Al-Emadi, the Qatar University professor, said. “Neutrality in mediation does not require having zero stake in the outcome; it requires remaining unaligned with either side’s partisan ambitions.”
Notable
- After signing a mutual-defense pact with Saudi Arabia, Pakistani officials are worried that attacks by Yemen’s Houthis could draw them into fighting even as they try to balance relations with Tehran, Reuters reports.