Pakistan, July 25 -- Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar's meeting with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Kyrgyzstan seems to have come as the geography of the Iran crisis was changing again. The last few days have seen a terrifying exchange of strikes between the two camps as Washington hit Iranian military facilities along the country's southern coast and Iran answered with attacks on US bases in Gulf states. In that atmosphere, the deputy prime minister's appeal to build on the Islamabad MoU will go down in history books as another much-needed attempt to keep a political wire connected while the military men on both sides were cutting through every safeguard around it.

The urgency is clearer at sea. Transit through Hormuz has already b...