Islamabad Locks Down for Second US–Iran Cease-Fire Summit

Chokepoint diplomacy over the Strait of Hormuz echoes Britain’s 1956 Suez gamble and the 1988 “Tanker War,” when control of oil routes forced hurried deals despite battlefield bravado. Pakistan’s role as host underscores a long drift away from great-power-brokered security frameworks—First the 1979 Algiers Accords, then the 2015 JCPOA, now a South Asian capital substitutes for Geneva or Vienna. Trump’s threat to ‘knock out every power plant’ mirrors Theodore Roosevelt’s 1907 gunboat ultimatums, yet history shows such rhetoric often precedes face-saving settlements rather than total war. Whether this round sticks will shape a century-scale trend: can mid-tier states manage nuclear-age crises and keep a fifth of global oil moving without permanent US naval policing? If Islamabad yields even a modest extension of the cease-fire, it may mark the moment responsibility for Gulf stability began decentralising—if it fails, the episode will slot beside Suez and the 1980-88 Gulf War as another warning that energy chokepoints remain the system’s brittle joints.