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The coverage of the United States, Israel and Iran conflict has understandably focused on Tehran, the Strait of Hormuz, and the fate of a regional order built over decades. Less visible are two countries that share long borders with Iran and whose fortunes have been quietly but profoundly shaped by the war. Afghanistan, landlocked and now cut off from both its eastern and western trade corridors, faces a degree of economic isolation without precedent. Pakistan, navigating between its defense commitments to Saudi Arabia, a diplomatic channel to Washington, and an unresolved border war with Afghanistan, has emerged as an unlikely but fragile intermediary. This article examines what the Iran war means for both, and why the answer matters beyond the immediate theatre of conflict.
Encircled and Entangled: What the Iran War Means for Afghanistan and Pakistan
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury, initiating what has become the most consequential Middle Eastern conflict since the Gulf Wars. U.S. and Israeli forces conducted hundreds of strikes in the first twelve hours alone, killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggering a regional escalation, well beyond Iran’s borders. Iran retaliated against Israel, U.S. bases across the Gulf, and even Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a joint U.S.-UK military base in the Indian Ocean..
In early March, the IRGC announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to vessels from the United States, Israel, and their allies. Brent crude surpassed $100 per barrel for the first time in years, in what analysts have described as the largest energy supply disruption in modern history. By mid-March, Iran had enforced the closure through a combination of drone strikes, anti-ship missiles, and the withdrawal of maritime insurance coverage. Pakistan, despite attempting neutrality, faced mounting pressure from its mutual defense commitments to Saudi Arabia while simultaneously managing its volatile border with Afghanistan, where it had declared "open war" on the Taliban regime just days before the Iran conflict escalated.
For Afghanistan and Pakistan, two nations sharing long, porous borders with Iran, the war created an immediate strategic crisis, disrupting critical trade corridors, triggering refugee flows, and intensifying existing tensions along their shared frontier. Afghanistan's primary trade route through Iran — increasingly vital after escalating tensions closed the Pakistani border — became untenable as conflict engulfed Iranian border regions. Afghanistan had already absorbed millions of returnees in 2025. Additionally, the World Food Programme warned that millions of Afghans faced acute food insecurity, with millions of children projected to require treatment for malnutrition in 2026.
The Taliban's Immediate Calculus
The Taliban's public response to the Iran war revealed a movement caught between ideological instinct and strategic necessity. On February 15, two weeks before Operation Epic Fury, Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid stated that Afghans were prepared to "cooperate and show sympathy" with Iran if the United States attacked and Tehran formally requested assistance — though he qualified this as cooperation "within their means." The statement was carefully hedged: conditional on an Iranian request, framed in terms of solidarity rather than military commitment, and accompanied by expressions of preference for a diplomatic solution.
When the strikes came on February 28, the Taliban's response was notably muted. While Taliban Foreign Minister Muttaqi initially expressed "deep regret" and condemned the aggression, the Taliban have so far declined to commit to any active role in the conflict. On March 24, the Taliban released American detainee Dennis Coyle after more than a year in custody, framing the decision as a humanitarian gesture timed to Eid al-Fitr.
The gap between Mujahid's February statement and the Taliban's subsequent inaction reflects the structural limits of the regime. Encircled economically, isolated diplomatically, and under active military pressure from Pakistan, the Taliban have no viable path to meaningful Iranian support even if they wished to pursue one. Rhetoric gave way to pragmatic neutrality once the conflict became real.
Landlocked Afghanistan’s Multi-Dimensional Crisis
When the Iran war began on February 28, 2026, Afghanistan found itself encircled. Afghanistan's strategic pivot to the wider South-Central Asian region, away from Pakistan had seemed promising. Bilateral trade with Iran surged in the second half of 2025, and the Chabahar port, originally developed with Indian investment and backed by a $35 million Taliban infrastructure commitment, had allowed Afghanistan to bypass Pakistan entirely, with trade reaching $1.6 billion in the latter half of 2025. That hedge, however, collapsed when the Iran war erupted. To the east, a direct conflict with Pakistan had already sealed major border crossings. For a landlocked nation producing little of its own industrial or food requirements, the simultaneous closure of both arteries created an unprecedented crisis. Even before the Iran war, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had warned that an estimated 21.9 million people — 45 per cent of the population would require humanitarian assistance in 2026.
The economic geography of this crisis matters. Afghanistan's trade profile is deeply asymmetric: Pakistan dominates as an export destination — absorbing roughly 45% of Afghan goods in 2024, primarily raw cotton, onions and solid fuels — while Iran dominates as an import source, supplying approximately 30% of Afghanistan's total imports, including petroleum and other fuels. In short, Afghanistan sells to Pakistan and buys from Iran. The closure of both corridors struck the Taliban's revenue base from two directions at once: lost export access to their primary market, and lost import flows from Iran, which together disrupted the customs duties that constitute over half of the Taliban's domestic revenue
India, which has emerged as Afghanistan's second-largest export destination, offered a partial lifeline through a newly activated air freight corridor linking Kabul with Delhi and Amritsar . Especially crucial in light of persistent closures of Afghanistan’s main land corridor with India, Attari-Wagha, since tensions have escalated between Afghanistan and Pakistan. But this air corridor, suited to high-value perishables like dried fruits and saffron, cannot substitute for the cheaper bulk trade volumes lost through traditional land corridors. The UAE, Afghanistan's second-largest import source, also saw its role as a transit hub disrupted as regional conflict paralyzed shipping routes, stranding an estimated 10,000 containers of Afghan transit goods at Jebel Ali Port.
The strategic implication is stark: of Afghanistan's major trade partners, only Pakistan controls a corridor that is both large enough to matter and capable of being reopened through a political decision. This places extraordinary leverage in Islamabad's hands.
Pakistan's Strategic Tightrope
When Operation Epic Fury struck on February 28, Pakistan found itself in an enviable and precarious position simultaneously. As the only Muslim-majority nuclear power with active channels to both Washington and Tehran, Islamabad moved quickly to position itself as an indispensable mediator.
By late March, Pakistan hosted foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt in Islamabad for talks focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and exploring a path back to the U.S.-Iran negotiations. Both countries seemed to welcome Pakistan’s efforts: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian thanked Pakistan for its mediation efforts, while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed Islamabad's willingness to play a mediating role. The results of these negotiations so far have seen Foreign Minister Dar announce that Iran had agreed to allow a limited number of Pakistani-flagged ships through the Strait— a modest but symbolically important concession. Whether Pakistan is acting as a mediator or a messenger remains contested, but its centrality to the diplomatic architecture of this conflict is remarkable.
This mediating role likely rests on a specific structural advantage: the Munir-Trump relationship; a relationship the Durand Dispatch has tracked since being forged during the May 2025 India-Pakistan ceasefire, when the two men spoke repeatedly and Trump publicly claimed credit for the deal. Trump subsequently hosted Munir at the White House, called him his "favorite field marshal," and praised Pakistan as knowing Iran "better than most." That personal channel gave Pakistan something most countries spend years cultivating: direct access to the Oval Office at a moment of regional crisis. Islamabad leveraged it carefully, condemning the U.S.-Israeli strikes while taking due care not to name Washington as an aggressor, a calculated ambiguity that preserved its diplomatic utility to both sides.
Pakistan's mediating role was complicated from the outset by a formal defense commitment. The Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement, signed in September 2025 by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, stipulates that any aggression against either country shall be considered aggression against both. When Iranian missiles began striking Saudi infrastructure, the pact's obligations became immediately relevant. Field Marshal Munir flew to Riyadh for emergency consultations with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman. Yet despite the pact's language, Pakistan stopped short of any military commitment — instead emphasizing de-escalation within its framework, a position that likely satisfied neither Riyadh nor Tehran fully, but preserved Islamabad's utility as the one actor still talking to both sides.
Domestic Fractures and Regional Spillover
Yet the same balancing act that elevated Pakistan internationally has generated domestic costs. Violent protests broke out across Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad following Khamenei's assassination, with demonstrators storming the U.S. Consulate in Karachi and at least twenty people killed in clashes nationwide. The sectarian dimension sharpened when Munir met Shia clerics in Rawalpindi and warned that violence driven by events in another country would not be tolerated — remarks that provoked anger within Pakistan's Shia community and exposed the limits of official neutrality as a domestic political position
The economic pressures of the war in Iran also have spillover effects for Pakistan. Energy prices surged as Strait of Hormuz disruptions sent global oil markets into panic, hitting an economy already under strain. Prime Minister Sharif announced emergency austerity measures, government employees shifted to a four-day workweek, and officials took salary cuts. The long-planned Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, once called the "Peace Pipeline" appears effectively foreclosed for now, with Iran having already filed an $18 billion arbitration claim against Pakistan at the International Court of Arbitration over its failure to complete its section of the pipeline.
Additionally, Pakistan's Balochistan province shares a border with Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan region, a corridor long defined by smuggling, militant activity, and cross-border insurgency. Instability in Iran threatens to embolden various militant groups operational in the province, such as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). The BLA issued a formal statement welcoming military strikes against Iranian security infrastructure, and also launched a coordinated multi-day offensive against Pakistani military targets in mid-March 2026, amplifying pressure on Pakistan's security forces. Other militant actors, including the Islamic State Khorasan Province and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, are also likely to exploit the associated volatility from the conflict. For Pakistan, managing simultaneous pressure on its eastern and western frontiers while sustaining its diplomatic role as a mediator represents its most acute governance challenge in years.
In addition to security threats, closures of Pakistan's border crossings with Iran have disrupted economies across Balochistan's border districts, including Turbat, Gwadar, and Panjgur, which rely heavily on Iran for various supplies, including food items. Prices have surged by 30 to 40 per cent in coastal districts, daily wage workers have been left without income, and locals who cross regularly for family visits have also been affected. Residents warned that a prolonged closure could lead to serious food and fuel shortages across the region.
Pakistan's tightrope walk reflects a broader strategic ambition: to convert the Munir-Trump relationship and its geographic position between Iran and the Gulf into lasting diplomatic capital. But this elevation is fragile. It rests on a personal rapport that is not institutionalized, on a defence pact with Saudi Arabia whose limits have already been tested, and on a domestic consensus that is fraying along sectarian lines. And running beneath all of it is the unresolved border war with Afghanistan — a conflict the world has largely stopped watching, but which Pakistan has not yet won, and which continues to generate costs that no amount of diplomatic visibility can offset.
Strategic Outlook
The Iran war arrived as a compounding crisis for a region already under strain. For Afghanistan, it foreclosed the one strategic hedge the Taliban had spent 2025 carefully constructing, the western trade corridor through Iran, at precisely the moment Pakistan had sealed the eastern one. The result is a degree of economic isolation without precedent for a landlocked state already dependent on external support for basic humanitarian needs. Whether this pressure forces the Taliban toward concessions — on the Pakistani Taliban, on border management, on engagement with the international community — or simply accelerates the regime's inward turn remains the central question for Afghanistan's trajectory in 2026.
Pakistan's outlook is more complex. Islamabad has emerged from the opening weeks of the Iran war with a diplomatic profile that would have seemed implausible even months ago: hosting multilateral talks, brokering partial Hormuz concessions, and positioning itself as the indispensable intermediary between Washington and Tehran. But diplomacy built on a personal rapport rather than institutional architecture is inherently brittle. If the war ends quickly, Pakistan may retain its elevated standing; if it drags on, the contradictions between its Saudi defense commitments, its outreach to Tehran, and its domestic sectarian fault lines will become increasingly difficult to manage — all while the unresolved border war with Afghanistan continues to generate costs that no amount of diplomatic visibility can offset.
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