To bail himself out of his self-made Iran war debacle, Trump has turned Pakistan into his backchannel to Tehran — effectively asking one Islamic republic to dissuade another from pursuing the very nuclear-weapons path it was once permitted to take. In other words, Pakistan is being asked to warn Iran against becoming another Pakistan.

BY BRAHMA CHELLANEY, The Hill

By any reasonable strategic measure, the divergent nature of U.S. policy toward Iran and Pakistan defies logic.

Both are Islamic republics. Both are authoritarian in structure. Both have had links to transnational terrorist networks. And both have long had fraught relationships with Washington.

Yet one is relentlessly sanctioned, threatened and even denied civilian nuclear rights under international safeguards. The other has been indulged, armed and repeatedly excused, even as it built nuclear weapons while fostering terrorist proxies.

In fact, Washington treats one as an unacceptable nuclear risk while overlooking the other’s expanding nuclear arsenal.

In Western political discourse, “Islamic Republic” has become shorthand for Iran. But that is historically inaccurate. The first Islamic republic of the postcolonial era was Pakistan, which adopted the title in 1956, more than two decades before Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

The label, in other words, does not explain Washington’s choices. It only exposes its inconsistency.

Consider Iran first. For decades, Washington has treated Tehran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential threat. President Trump scrapped the 2015 Obama-era nuclear deal despite Iran’s verified compliance. Under that agreement, Tehran shipped out most of its enriched uranium, capped enrichment levels and accepted intrusive international inspections.

Yet today, the U.S. insists that Iran must go further — that it must not merely agree never to develop nuclear weapons but abandon uranium enrichment altogether, even under stringent international monitoring.

The demand for zero enrichment goes beyond the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which explicitly guarantees non-nuclear states the “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment. This explains why non-nuclear states like Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Brazil operate active enrichment programs, including maintaining enriched uranium stockpiles.

So long as international inspectors can verify Iranian compliance with its commitments, zero enrichment is not required to prevent Iran from building the bomb.

Now contrast this with Pakistan, the only country to have developed nuclear weapons while cultivating terrorist proxies as instruments of state policy. It built its arsenal outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expanded it steadily and continues to invest in new warheads and delivery systems, including tactical nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use. Washington largely looks the other way.

Even as the U.S. warns about the dangers of a hypothetical Iranian bomb, it has largely ignored Pakistan’s ongoing nuclear and missile buildup. At its current pace, Pakistan’s arsenal is expected to grow significantly by the end of this decade.

More striking still is that the U.S. intelligence community, in its recently released 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, has for the first time placed Pakistan alongside China, Russia, North Korea and Iran as a missile and nuclear threat to the American homeland.

In other words, Washington officially recognizes Pakistan as a strategic nuclear risk while continuing to treat it as one of its 19 “major non-NATO allies.”

This contradiction extends beyond weapons to governance.

Both Pakistan and Iran are structurally undemocratic, but Washington treats their internal politics very differently.

Last November, Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, effectively staged a constitutional coup, consolidating power behind a legal facade. Munir accomplished what Pakistan’s previous military dictators never quite managed: He seized absolute power cloaked in constitutional legality.

Yet Washington turned a blind eye, in part because Trump has repeatedly praised Munir, including calling him “my favorite field marshal,” “a great, great guy” and “an inspiring personality.”

Less than four months after Munir’s power grab, Trump on February 28, 2026, launched military action against Iran aimed explicitly at forcing regime change in Tehran.

The inconsistency becomes almost surreal in diplomacy. Washington recently leaned on Pakistan to host high-level U.S. talks with Iran, effectively asking one nuclear-armed Islamic republic to persuade another not to follow the very path it was allowed to take.

In other words, Pakistan was asked to warn Iran against becoming another Pakistan.

The deeper history makes this double standard harder to dismiss.

Pakistan’s bomb did not emerge in isolation. It was enabled by external assistance and illicit procurement, much of it orchestrated by A.Q. Khan, who ran the world’s most extensive nuclear-smuggling network. Yet Khan was never held to account by Washington. When his network was exposed, Pakistan staged a controlled confession, pardoned him, and barred international investigators — an outcome Washington quietly accepted.

Geopolitics explains the indulgence. During the Cold War and the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan was seen as indispensable. Its nuclearization and internal conduct were overlooked in exchange for strategic cooperation.

Iran, in contrast, has been cast as a permanent adversary. Its theocratic system is often cited as justification. The U.S., however, has long partnered with Islamist regimes elsewhere, including in Gulf Arab states. The real dividing line is not ideology but alignment.

Pakistan, for all its contradictions, has been a security partner. Iran has not.

Yet the selective enforcement of nuclear norms carries consequences. It undermines the credibility of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy. It signals that strategic utility can excuse almost anything.

Most dangerously, it distorts incentives. If Iran sees that compliance with international agreements leads to sanctions, while defiance — Pakistan-style — ultimately leads to acceptance, what lesson is it supposed to draw? Indeed, why should any state trust that nuclear restraint will be rewarded?

American policymakers often frame their Iran policy as a defense of global order. But order depends on consistency. When rules are applied selectively, they cease to be rules at all. They become instruments of convenience. And in a nuclearized world, that is profoundly risky.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”