Pakistan’s role in brokering Iran deal; will Iranian hardliners let it happen?

0:00This season on Planet Money Summer School, we're going on a world tour. And first up, we're following the money down under. From Australia's market where people buy and sell water, to how New Zealand is changing the way central banks fight inflation. Pack your bags and come along as we learn from the rest of the world. Planet Money Summer School. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:24Today on State of the World. Pakistan's role in brokering an Iran deal. And will Iranian hardliners let it happen?

0:35You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. For more than a week, Iran and the U.S. have resumed attacks on each other. The U.S. has been striking targets inside Iran. Iran has been hitting countries which host American military bases like Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. The hostilities follow a collapse of a ceasefire deal. as Iran asserts control over the Strait of Hormuz. In a few minutes, how much power do hardliners in Iran have? First, Pakistan, the country that helped mediate that ceasefire between the U.S.

1:14and Iran, is being asked to play the same role again. As NPR's Dia Hadid reports from Islamabad, the peacemaker role represents a remarkable turn of fortune for Pakistan's army chief and his country.

1:32A brass band plays for Iran's president. He was visiting in June, a gesture of thanks, after Pakistan mediated a memorandum of understanding that set off negotiations on a peace deal, even amid flaring clashes. Pakistan's Defence Minister Khwaja Asaf says his country has a new role, peacemaker. We have attained a very praiseworthy role, which is a clean break from... A clean break from when, in his view, Pakistan was unfairly labelled a... A country which was identified with terrorism. Arafa Noor is a columnist with Pakistani newspaper Dawn. In a cafe, she says this was unexpected. Pieces of the puzzle kept falling into place in a way that perhaps nobody could have predicted.

2:17In fact, when Trump was re-elected, Pakistan's military government worried they'd pay a price for jailing the former Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2023. Khan had good relations with Trump in his first administration. And Trump confidant Richard Grinnell demanded his release in now-deleted tweets. Everybody was worried, actually. Abdullah Khan heads the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. He says the military-backed government worked to get into Trump's good books, including by extraditing a man accused of involvement in the 2021 Kabul attack that killed more than a dozen service members during America's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

2:58Khan says that effort paid off. Trump thanked Pakistan in his first joint session of Congress in March last year. And I want to thank especially the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster. A few weeks later, events took another turn. India struck multiple targets across Pakistan in the most extensive strikes in more than 50 years. Pakistan caught Trump's attention as it fought back and claimed to have downed Indian fighter jets. After that days-long war, President Trump hosted Army Chief Field Marshal Arsene Muneer in the White House. Afterwards, he began calling him my favorite general.

3:34And Pakistan flattered a man who enjoys flattery. Mr President, I would like to salute you. That's Prime Minister Shabar Sharif. In audio from the Associated Press last October, he announces... I would like to nominate this great president for Nobel Peace Prize. So by the time the US and Israel began their war on Iran in late February, columnist Noor says Pakistan was uniquely placed to play peacemaker. There was nobody else who could have played this role. She says the Army Chief Field Marshal Asselmanir worked to contain the war to stop it from spreading. He tapped his newfound contacts at the White House alongside the Prime Minister, Shehrab Sharif.

4:17And Iran, too, was short on friends, and Pakistan's Interior Minister, Mahsa Nakvi, was dispatched to Tehran. It helped that he was from Pakistan's large Shia minority. Shortly after the war began, Pakistan arranged a ceasefire between the US and Iran that has curbed the worst clashes. That was followed by April talks in Islamabad. They quickly collapsed, but Pakistani mediators kept trying. Then, in mid-June... We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran. Now Khan, the security analyst, says Pakistan's emerged as a regional force and appears to be exploring defence agreements with smaller Gulf countries.

4:57They're looking towards Pakistan because Americans failed to protect them during this war. But Noor, the columnist, says, while Pakistan looks outwardly strong... There is no stability. She says Muneera's military-backed government has been quelling flaring protests with violence. In June, in clashes between protesters and police, 20 people were killed. If the state is using violence, then it means its authority and legitimacy is already under question. And she says that instability may erode Pakistan's gains. That's NPR's Dia Hadid in Islamabad. If Pakistan is able to help negotiate a new ceasefire between the U.S.

5:38and Iran, will Iranian hardliners allow it to go into place? Do they have the clout to stop it? NPR's Hadil al-Shalchi takes a look at the power hardliners have in the current Iranian regime.

5:54In a video posted online, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqji, who had been leading ceasefire talks with the U.S., is jostled in a mob of people all dressed in black. Death to the compromiser, death to the compromiser, they shout at him. They're mourners at the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on the first day of the war. Some carry signs reading, kill Trump, and wave red flags that symbolize their calls. The cry goes, revenge, revenge. These ultra-hardliners want the Iranian regime to continue fighting the United States. They were shaming Araqchi for engaging in ceasefire talks.

6:37In another video, mourners gather around hardline politician Saeed Jalili, who has been vehemently anti-US.

6:47Jalili, you are our only hope, one woman shouts at him. Another clip shows Hussain Shariat Madhuri, an ultra-conservative author, proposing a condition to any ceasefire. One of our demands is the arrest of President Trump, he says. Ali Vaez is the Iran project director at International Crisis Group. He says many of these people became further radicalized after the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran started. And while some of their rhetoric is anti-regime, current Iranian leaders need them to survive. These are the people who are willing to come to the streets and fight with any internal opponents to ensure the regime's survival.

7:29At the same time, they are also creating a very toxic environment internally for diplomacy. In June, the U.S. and Iran had signed a memorandum of understanding that would have limited Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief and talks to end the war permanently. But the fragile deal quickly unraveled after the U.S. and Iran began trading strikes in July and Trump declared the ceasefire over. Vahez says the preliminary agreement would have also been bad for some of those who gained financially from keeping Iran at war. There have been an entire class, often associated and affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, who've been enriched through creating channels for circumventing U.S.

8:12sanctions. So they manage the black market and they don't want economic reopening of the country. Under the agreement, Iran would have been allowed to sell oil on the international market, making black market transactions less lucrative. If you imagine the commission that these people would get from those transactions, all of that could have evaporated if this MOU would have been fully implemented. Bedvaez says that while hardliners are pivotal to keeping the current Iranian regime alive, they don't call the shots. He says Iran is ruled by a group of decision makers who are connected to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which doesn't include many of these hardliners.

8:49Those decision makers had the same strategic objectives, give Iran an economic reprieve and regroup for future conflicts. Yes, there are lots of debates and differences, but that doesn't really affect the policymakers because they hold the power and there's no one really outside of that realm who can challenge them. While hardliners may not move the needle of diplomacy, they are loud and the regime tolerates and fuels their message. In a rare address by the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and current Iranian leader, Ayatollah Mushtaba Khamenei called for revenge. A news anchor read his statement on Iranian state TV.

9:29We pledge to take revenge for your pure blood and all the martyrs of these two wars, he said. This revenge is the will of our nation and must be carried out without fail, he said. That's NPR's Hidil al-Shalci in Istanbul.

9:51That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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10:23On this season of Planet Money Summer School, we follow the money and not just the dollars. We're following the yuan, the naira, the krona, and more. Every Wednesday this summer, we're taking you on a world tour to meet the people, try new solutions to old economic problems. Planet Money Summer School. Grab some friends, pack your bags, and don't forget the sunscreen. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.