Pakistan has a strange gift: just when the world begins to take it a bit seriously, it produces an ‘oops’ moment so spectacular that the script writes itself. One week it is pitching itself as a serious mediator between the United States and Iran; the next, a US senator is publicly asking whether it has quietly parked Iranian military aircraft on its airbases. The latest incidennt may not surprise many because Pakistan’s strategic doctrine often resembles that one friend who lies badly, gets caught on CCTV, and still insists everyone else is misunderstanding the situation. Whether it is harbouring terrorists, denying military links, or claiming neutrality while taking sides, Islamabad has perfected the art of saying “nothing happened here” even as satellite images and foreign intelligence suggest otherwise.That is why US senator Lindsey Graham’s blunt declaration on Tuesday – “I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them” – was something just waiting to happen. The immediate trigger was a latest report that Iranian military aircraft, including reconnaissance planes, had been allowed to shelter at Pakistan air force base Nur Khan during the ongoing US-Iran confrontation. But the reasoning was simple: for many capitals, from New Delhi to Washington, Pakistan’s credibility comes with a permanent asterisk: handle with caution, history attached.
Iran’s aircraft at Pakistan airbase
The controversy erupted after a CBS News report claimed that Iranian military aircraft had used Pakistani facilities, including Nur Khan airbase, during the ceasefire phase of the US-Iran conflict. The suggestion was explosive: a country presenting itself as a neutral go-between in peace talks may have been quietly helping Tehran protect strategic assets from possible American strikes.Pakistan denied it, of course. Its foreign ministry said the aircraft and personnel were linked only to diplomatic logistics for the “Islamabad talks”, the backchannel negotiations hosted by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Asim Munir. It called the military angle “misleading and sensationalised”.That scrutiny has intensified because Asim Munir is no ordinary military chief in the current setup. His recent elevation in Pakistan’s power structure, with the army increasingly eclipsing civilian authority under Shehbaz Sharif, has reinforced the view that foreign policy, security decisions and even crisis diplomacy are being routed through the military rather than the elected government.
But the trust deficit is so deep that Islamabad’s denials no longer suffice. US officials, according to CNN, are increasingly suspicious that Pakistani intermediaries are softening Iran’s position, relaying a more “optimistic” picture to the Trump administration than Tehran is actually offering. According to CNN sources, several Trump officials now believe Pakistani intermediaries have not been forceful enough in conveying Trump’s frustration to Iranian negotiators.In other words, Pakistan is accused not merely of facilitating diplomacy but managing perceptions to buy Iran time.
‘There are no terrorists’ claim that collapsed in days
For India, the freshest example came during Operation Sindoor. After India struck terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir following the Pahalgam terror attack, Islamabad’s official response was immediate and categorical: there were no terrorist camps, no terror commanders, and India had targeted civilians.Then came the funeral videos. Pakistani military personnel, including uniformed officers, were seen attending the funerals of terror operatives linked to banned groups. For India, it was the perfect exhibit of the familiar contradiction: harbour the terrorists but deny that such ecosystem exists.
The Abbottabad template
Long before Operation Sindoor or the Iran aircraft row, there was the event that shaped American suspicion for a generation: Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.For years, Pakistan insisted the al-Qaida chief was nowhere on its soil. Yet in 2011, US navy SEALs found him living in a large compound barely a short distance from the Pakistan military academy.
The Americans did not inform Pakistan before the raid, fearing that someone inside the establishment might tip him off.It remains perhaps the most famous ‘oops’ in intelligence history. Either Pakistan did not know the world’s most wanted terrorist was living next to one of its premier military institutions, or it did know and concealed it. Neither explanation inspired confidence.
The double game as doctrine
Complicating the double game is Pakistan’s own three-front security crisis, a kind of domestic ‘three-body problem’ that its military has struggled to contain. On one side is the Afghan Taliban regime, whose return to power has not translated into strategic calm for Islamabad; on another is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has stepped up attacks inside Pakistan and in the southwest, the long-running Baloch insurgency continues to challenge state control.
With crises pressing from all three directions, Pakistan establishment is trying to manage external leverage while firefighting at home.This recurring pattern has led many analysts to argue that Pakistan’s “double game” is not accidental but structural. It has long used non-state actors, strategic ambiguity, and carefully calibrated deniability as tools of statecraft.During the US war in Afghanistan, Pakistan was designated a major non-Nato ally while simultaneously being accused of allowing the Taliban leadership and the Haqqani network to operate from its territory. American aid flowed in; insurgent sanctuaries allegedly remained. By the time Kabul fell in 2021, Washington’s strategic community had largely accepted that Pakistan had played both sponsor and ally.The same script appears to be repeating in 2026.Pakistan wants to be seen as indispensable to Washington while also retaining leverage with Tehran, Beijing, the Gulf states and domestic constituencies. It tries to be everyone’s channel and no one’s enemy. But Islamabad’s acts often create the opposite impression: that it is speaking different truths to different capitals. Pakistan likes to describe itself as a bridge between the Muslim world and the West, between rivals, between war and diplomacy. But a bridge works only if both sides trust it will hold.Today, that trust is visibly fraying. In Washington, parts of the Trump administration are reportedly considering whether Pakistan should remain central to the US-Iran channel. Pakistan’s internal instability has only deepened that distrust. The removal and jailing of Imran Khan after his fallout with the military establishment sharpened the perception that real power in Islamabad still lies not with elected leaders but with Rawalpindi’s generals.
For outside powers, that means any diplomatic assurance from Pakistan comes with an obvious question: who is really speaking for the state?
Bonus: The ‘oops’ moments that became global meme
Some of Pakistan’s credibility crises are geopolitical. Others are so self-inflicted that they escape diplomacy altogether and enter meme culture. In recent years, Islamabad’s global image has been dented not just by accusations of double-dealing, but also by a string of communication blunders that quickly went viral.The freshest came in April 2026, when PM Shehbaz Sharif briefly posted what appeared to be an unedited draft message on X while commenting on the US-Iran ceasefire. The post, widely shared online, reportedly carried the label “Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X” before being edited, fuelling speculation that Islamabad had accidentally published an internal script during a sensitive diplomatic moment.
Go back further to September 2017, and Pakistan suffered one of its most notable diplomatic setbacks at the United Nations. Its envoy Maleeha Lodhi held up a photograph as evidence of alleged Indian atrocities in Kashmir. The image was soon identified as that of a Palestinian girl injured in Gaza in 2014, turning Pakistan’s rebuttal into an international embarrassment.
For Pakistan, the real problem is no longer any single allegation, whether about Iranian aircraft, terror safe havens or diplomatic mixed messaging. It is that decades of strategic ambiguity have created a credibility trap, every denial now arrives preloaded with disbelief and every crisis risks becoming yet another global ‘oops’ moment.
