There were photographs on the table in my Eyrie—the Eagle’s Nest, my rooftop studio apartment at F-10 Markaz, Islamabad. Two of them held my attention longer than the rest. I kept looking, almost unwilling to trust my own eyes, especially the one in which Prince Khalid bin Salman, Mohsen Rezaei and Field Marshal Asim Munir sat together.
What an extraordinary gathering for this troubled region! Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rivalry has shaped the politics of West Asia for decades, appearing side by side. What had brought these estranged neighbours to the same table? Who had helped arrange this improbable encounter? Who had persuaded old suspicions to make room for a new possibility?
Not merely a sharp-suited career diplomat, it seemed, but a soldier—a man who had stepped beyond the barracks and, metaphorically, exchanged his uniform for a tuxedo.
My thoughts did not linger undisturbed.
The chiming of bells grew closer, accompanied by a familiar fragrance. BāBā-Tāl, the Bell-man, my tall, thin and remarkably sprightly dervish guide, was approaching. His navy-blue robe carried brass bells of different sizes; his blue jeans were torn at the knees, their loose threads dancing above his joggers. His deep eyes, thick moustache and French beard seemed to conceal a library of untold stories. He had a quiet smile, but his wisdom rarely arrived without a question.
At that very moment, the old brass kettle in the kitchenette began its low whistle, announcing that the tea was ready and eager for our lips. I rose to fetch the mugs.
“Bacha!” BāBā-Tāl whispered, his bells chiming as he settled down. “Sometimes, the most important thing a man in uniform can do is prevent another man from reaching for his weapons.”
I paused, carrying the mugs towards the table.
Was that a passing remark—or the opening sentence of a history still being written?
The photographs remained before us. One question refused to leave the room: who had helped make this improbable picture possible?
The answer, increasingly evident from the public record, was Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces. On 26 October 2026, Tehran hosted a quadrilateral meeting bringing together Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. The participants included Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Türkiye’s intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, and Field Marshal Munir. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also participated.
The meeting was held at Pakistan’s initiative, with Iran’s agreement. Its joint statement was measured: the four countries would continue dialogue to strengthen regional cooperation, peace and security. No comprehensive settlement was announced. No historic treaty between Iran and Saudi Arabia emerged from the room. The participants did not declare that decades of mistrust had vanished overnight.
Yet the gathering itself mattered.
In diplomacy, the significance of an event is not always measured by the number of agreements signed. Sometimes it lies in the fact that people who have long regarded one another with suspicion agree to sit together, listen, and return for another conversation.
For that reason, the photograph deserved attention—not as proof that peace had arrived, but as evidence that another channel for pursuing it had opened.
The circumstances made the encounter particularly significant. On 7 August 2026, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, intended to strengthen their collective defence and cooperation. The subsequent meeting in Tehran brought Iran into a four-country conversation involving all three partners of that arrangement.
This was a delicate diplomatic equation. A defence agreement involving three countries could be viewed with apprehension by a fourth, particularly amid regional conflict and strategic mistrust. Bringing representatives of all four into a discussion required more than a ceremonial invitation. It required an understanding that regional security could not be discussed meaningfully while a major regional neighbour remained outside the conversation.
The Tehran meeting addressed regional security, developments affecting Palestine and Lebanon, and the wider consequences of conflict in West Asia. Iranian officials also emphasised the idea of security generated through regional cooperation rather than imposed from outside.
Such language reflects a larger question confronting West Asia: can the countries of the region develop sufficient trust to manage their disagreements themselves, or will their rivalries continue to invite external powers to shape their destinies?
The answer remains uncertain. But the question cannot be answered without dialogue.
And this is where the role of Field Marshal Munir deserves examination—not through extravagant praise or the manufacture of a national hero, but through the tangible diplomatic initiative reported by the participating countries.
A military commander possesses instruments of authority unavailable to many civilian intermediaries. Yet military authority alone cannot produce reconciliation. Indeed, when mishandled, it can deepen the very suspicions that mediation seeks to overcome. The challenge is to employ access, strategic relationships and institutional credibility in the service of a peaceful political objective.
In this instance, Pakistan’s initiative helped bring the four countries together. That is a meaningful diplomatic development. Its lasting value, however, will depend on what follows.
A meeting is an opening, not a destination.
The rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia have deep historical, political and strategic roots. Their differences cannot be reduced to a photograph or resolved by a handshake. Domestic political pressures, competing security interests and the actions of other regional and international powers may all complicate the process. A renewed escalation could undo progress before it acquires institutional strength.
The honest observer must therefore resist two temptations: dismissing the meeting because it produced no immediate settlement, and celebrating it as though peace had already been secured.
The truth lies between those extremes.
A door has been opened. Whether anyone walks through it, and whether others keep it open, remains to be seen.
The Soldier and the Tuxedo
The tuxedo in my title is metaphorical. It represents a change of setting and purpose: the soldier stepping into the uncertain world of negotiation, where an adversary must be heard rather than merely confronted.
The uniform carries command, discipline and the capacity to defend. The tuxedo evokes the formal world of diplomatic engagement. Neither garment guarantees wisdom. Neither makes a man a peacemaker by itself. What matters is the purpose for which authority is exercised.
The history of international relations offers examples of military leaders who have participated in negotiations, just as it offers examples of diplomats whose finest achievements came through patient, unglamorous work. The dividing line is not between soldiers and civilians. It is between those who use their position to widen the space for peaceful solutions and those who allow confrontation to become an end in itself.
Field Marshal Munir’s role in facilitating the Tehran meeting places him within that larger tradition of military diplomacy. The next test is whether the initiative develops into regular consultations, practical confidence-building measures and arrangements capable of surviving political turbulence.
If it does, the photograph may one day be remembered as an early frame in a longer story. If it does not, it will remain a promising moment that failed to mature.
Either way, the attempt deserves to be assessed by its actual achievements, not by slogans.
When Faith Demands Reconciliation
For a Muslim audience, the pursuit of regional peace carries a moral dimension beyond strategic calculation.
The Holy Qur’an declares:
“And if two groups of the believers fight, then make peace between them.”
— Surah Al-Hujurat, 49:9.
The following verse reminds believers that they are brothers and commands them to maintain righteousness in the hope of receiving mercy. (Qur’an 49:10.)
These verses do not suggest that differences disappear through sentiment or that justice should be sacrificed to convenience. They place the responsibility of reconciliation upon those who have the ability to pursue it.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad [Peace and blessings be upon him] said:
“The believer to another believer is like a building whose different parts enforce each other.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 481; also narrated in Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2585.
The lesson extends beyond personal relations. Societies and nations may retain distinct interests and legitimate disagreements, yet they must recognise the destructive consequences of allowing every disagreement to become a permanent confrontation.
For countries bound by geography, history, faith and shared economic vulnerabilities, peaceful coexistence is not an ornamental ideal. It is a practical necessity.
Nor should religious language be used to conceal injustice or silence legitimate differences. Genuine reconciliation requires respect, restraint, honesty and a willingness to address the causes of conflict. Brotherhood becomes meaningful when it influences conduct, not merely when it decorates a communiqué.
John F. Kennedy offered a lesson that remains relevant to international affairs:
“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
— John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1961.
That is the delicate balance facing every mediator: the strength to protect legitimate interests, combined with the courage to seek an alternative to endless confrontation.
The People Behind the Photograph
At this point, BāBā-Tāl lifted his tea, took a thoughtful sip and watched the steam curl above the mug.
“Bacha,” he whispered, “when rulers argue, ordinary people pay the bill. When the guns speak, mothers count their children. When trade routes close, workers lose their wages. When oil becomes a weapon, the poor discover that even the price of bread can be decided far beyond their own streets.”
His bells gave a faint chime as he leaned back.
I knew what he meant. The language of geopolitics can make conflict sound like a contest between flags, military formations and strategic interests. But beneath every strategic calculation lie human lives: families displaced, livelihoods interrupted, prices rising, and young people inheriting grievances they did not create.
A regional understanding that protects only the calculations of governments, while ignoring the suffering of ordinary people, would be an incomplete peace.
The people of West Asia deserve more than carefully arranged photographs. They deserve practical measures that reduce the likelihood of war, protect civilians, preserve trade and create conditions in which ordinary families can plan their futures without fear of the next crisis.
This is also where Pakistan’s responsibility extends beyond the conduct of one military leader. Diplomacy must be supported by coherent national policy, professional diplomatic engagement, parliamentary understanding where appropriate, and sustained cooperation among the relevant institutions. A personal channel may open a door; durable institutions must help keep it open.
No individual should become the sole custodian of a nation’s diplomatic hopes. The strongest achievement would be a process capable of continuing beyond any one officeholder, personality or political season.
That is how mediation becomes a legacy rather than an episode.
POETEARS — Coined by T. Hejazi
Where poetry becomes tears, and tears become poetry.
When ancient rivalries darken the sky,
Let wiser hearts give peace a chance to rise;
Let no proud banner teach the young to die,
And let the wounded earth reclaim the skies.
QUATRAIN — Coined by T. Hejazi — Where poetry becomes tears, and tears become poetry.
The Mediator of Decades
I returned my attention to the photographs.
The four countries had agreed to continue talking. It was a modest commitment, but modest beginnings are not necessarily meaningless ones. The question now was whether the commitment would acquire substance through further meetings, concrete cooperation and a shared determination to prevent regional disputes from spiralling into wider conflict.
BāBā-Tāl placed his mug on the table.
“Bacha,” he whispered, “do not ask only who brought the rivals into one room. Ask who will have the patience to keep them there when the first disagreement returns.”
I looked at him. His deep eyes seemed to hold both a warning and a hope.
“Decades build walls,” he continued softly. “A photograph may show a doorway. But someone must keep walking through it, again and again, until yesterday’s enemies discover that talking is not surrender, and peace is not weakness.”
Outside, Islamabad continued its ordinary business. The city’s traffic moved, telephones rang, and people pursued the daily tasks that rarely find a place in diplomatic communiqués. Inside the Eyrie, the bells had grown quiet.
The geopolitical moment captured in those photographs remained fragile and unfinished. Whether it would become a turning point depended on decisions still to be made by leaders in Tehran, Islamabad, Riyadh and Ankara—and on their willingness to translate words into action.
For one afternoon in late October, however, the picture existed: Iran and Saudi Arabia represented at the same table, alongside Pakistan and Türkiye, discussing a region whose people have endured far too many cycles of confrontation.
And at the centre of Pakistan’s initiative stood a soldier who had stepped into the difficult work of mediation.
History will decide whether Field Marshal Asim Munir becomes remembered as a mediator of decades or as a participant in one promising diplomatic episode. That distinction cannot be settled by a headline, a uniform or a photograph. It will be settled by what follows.
The tea had grown slightly cooler.
We drank it anyway.
And as I watched the last curl of steam disappear, one thought remained with me: sometimes the first duty of leadership is not to win another confrontation, but to make the next confrontation less likely.
The photograph had captured a moment.
The future would judge the mission.