The ongoing United States-Israel war over Iran has placed the Strait of Hormuz at the center of a multi-dimensional geopolitical crisis. Since the start of hostilities in late February 2026, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has repeatedly threatened or targeted ships, suspending transit through the strait. This resulted in what the International Energy Agency has described as the most severe supply disruption in the history of the global energy market.
In this complex situation, three scenarios emerge for what happens next: regional military action; joint international operations; And phased talks. Pakistan’s mediation – one of the few functioning diplomatic channels between Washington and Tehran – could play a key role in two of them.
Scenario One: Unilateral Regional Military Action
This scenario envisions a coalition of regional states, primarily Gulf Cooperation Council members and Jordan, conducting an independent military operation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without direct U.S. operational involvement. This may be driven by chronic economic bleeding, exhaustion of diplomatic options, or domestic political pressure to demonstrate state agency.
This scenario stumbles upon the problem of “capability asymmetry”. While the Gulf states have invested significantly in modernizing their militaries over the past two decades, they lack integrated naval power projection, mine countermeasures and anti-air defense capabilities to neutralize the layered asymmetric threat posed by Iran in the Strait.
The stability of the military alliance is also in question: each state has an incentive to free-ride on the military contributions of other members, especially given the risk of Iranian retaliatory attacks on energy infrastructure.
More seriously, unilateral regional action increases the risk of escalation: Iran’s doctrine of “forward defense” implies that any military pressure on the Strait of Hormuz is likely to generate proportionate pressure on the Gulf’s oil infrastructure and population centres.
Pakistan has cautioned against continued military escalation and sought to maintain diplomatic space to prevent such a situation. Should it be implemented without prior diplomatic involvement, Pakistan’s intermediary channel would likely collapse and one of the few remaining crisis management mechanisms would be removed.
Scenario Two: Regional Alignment with US Operations
The second scenario envisions regional states formally engaging 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 military 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, which uses limited force to change behavior without initiating all-out war. In his work on coercive diplomacy, the late American political scientist Alexander George identified three conditions for success: credible capability, the opponent’s perception of disproportionate costs, and an available face-saving off-ramp.
The counterproposal sent by Tehran in response to the US’s 15-point plan for talks signals a bargaining posture rather than unconditional resistance. This suggests that the second and third conditions of coercive diplomacy may not be completely absent.
However, Israel’s public opposition to the negotiated agreement and its concerns that US engagement with Iran through intermediaries could undermine its strategic objectives could create tensions within the alliance. This, in turn, may weaken its reliable capability.
In this scenario, Pakistan’s role would change from an active mediator to a diplomatic buffer, which would seek to preserve communication channels even amid open hostilities. Islamabad’s unique position of being able to communicate with both Tehran and Washington will make it an indispensable backchannel even in this militarized context.
Ultimately, a hybrid approach could emerge, involving sustained military pressure along with a parallel track of indirect negotiations through Pakistan, designed to force Iran’s face-saving withdrawal from the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for verifiable sanctions relief.
Scenario three: continued closure of the strait
The third and most analytically plausible near-term scenario envisions Iran maintaining its hold on the strait while using the threat of continued closure as leverage in negotiations with the US. It represents a classic example of what the American scholar Thomas Schelling has called “coercive bargaining”: the manipulation of shared risk to extract political concessions without confrontation.
Iran’s selective de-escalation gesture on March 26, allowing ships 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 its continued ability to control access, reward aligned states, and signal to Washington that full reopening is dependent on political adjustment.
This is what crisis bargaining theorists identify as “limited scrutiny”: a reflexive concession designed to test an adversarial solution without giving up fundamental leverage.
Iran’s counteroffer, which includes demands for reparations and sovereignty over the strait, represents an extreme starting position from which concessions can be made while maintaining the appearance of toughness.
This is the scenario in which Pakistan’s mediation work is most important. The format of negotiations under discussion in Islamabad represents exactly the kind of face-saving, high-level but indirect engagement that requires extended coercive bargaining.
A phased outcome linking partial sanctions relief to incremental strait reopenings, reinforced by a multilateral navigation framework under UN supervision, represents the most institutionally sustainable solution available within this scenario.
The three scenarios examined here do not represent mutually exclusive pathways, but rather competing pressures acting together in the same crisis environment. The near-term trajectory will be shaped by the interaction between military capability, coercive signaling and the structural availability of diplomatic off-ramps.
Of the three, the third scenario, in which Iran uses closure of the Straits as a continuing bargaining tool while indirect negotiations continue, represents the most likely configuration, if Pakistan’s mediation channel remains intact and the US-Israeli alliance does not fracture in a way that either ends military escalation or is fundamentally intensified.
Scenarios one and two depend on the failure of diplomacy, and both involve disproportionate risks relative to the anticipated benefits.
This crisis cannot be reduced to the difference between war and peace. It is a structured bargaining competition in which negotiated outcomes, mutual vulnerabilities, available mediators, and face-saving mechanisms are present but fragile.
Preservation of Pakistan’s mediating role, the Gulf states’ de-escalation posture, and a gradual narrowing of the bargaining gap between Washington and Tehran are the most realistic basis for a permanent solution, even if partial.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
