Pakistan, April 7 -- The world is watching oil prices. Analysts are debating recession risks, central banks are recalibrating, and Western governments are scrambling over strategic reserves. But lost in this global noise is a more targeted, more urgent question that hits closer to home: what does the US-Israel war on Iran actually mean for Pakistan? Not in abstract macroeconomic terms - but in the concrete, unsparing language of foreign exchange reserves, remittance flows, fertilizer supply chains, and the livelihoods of tens of millions of Pakistanis who feed the country and work its fields.

The answer is deeply troubling. And Islamabad's response so far - a four-day work week, school closures, rotating work-from-home schedules - while ...