Pakistan, Sept. 22 -- Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni's decision on Monday to publicly thank Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir for Pakistan's "continuous efforts" for regional peace was more than diplomatic courtesy. Naqvi happened to be in Tehran as Iran was again spelling out its terms for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Washington was signalling that another round of diplomacy might still be possible. Pakistan remains somewhere in the middle of that conversation.

Islamabad helped produce the June 18 memorandum that briefly stopped the fighting and reopened a negotiating track between Washington and Tehran. Yet Donald Trump pronounced the arrangement "over" on July 8; hostilities resumed, and attem...