Pakistan, April 8 -- Pakistan now stands between devil and the deep blue sea. The strike on Jubail did more than hit Saudi industrial muscle; it struck at the diplomatic script Islamabad had, with unusual persistence, to keep alive as it facilitated contacts between Washington and Tehran.

Those efforts were neither ceremonial nor risk-free. They were costly, deliberate and unusually ambitious for a state with shrinking fiscal room and no appetite for another regional fire.

Islamabad sought to reassure Riyadh while maintaining channels with Tehran, and to demonstrate to Washington that a Muslim capital still retained the required trust on both sides. At its core, it aimed to prevent the region's oldest nightmare: Muslim states locked int...