The National Interest
The Strategic Rationale for the Mecca Pact
Author: Mohammed Ayoob
The “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement” is not a rejection of US partnership but rather a safeguard against its downsides.
The Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani defense pact signed in Mecca last week should not be dismissed as just another nominal exercise in Islamic solidarity with hardly any strategic significance. Nor should it be interpreted primarily as an anti-Iranian alliance. Its deeper significance lies elsewhere. The “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement” reflects two increasingly powerful anxieties among major Muslim states: the fear that unchecked Israeli military predominance will fundamentally reshape the regional balance, and the growing conviction that American security commitments are no longer sufficiently reliable as far as protecting their interests is concerned.
These concerns are interconnected. For Riyadh, Ankara, and Islamabad, the problem is not simply American unreliability in the traditional sense of Washington failing to come to an ally’s defense. It is also the perception that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acquired extraordinary influence over President Donald Trump’s regional policies and can draw Washington into actions that serve Israeli strategic objectives while imposing potentially enormous costs on America’s Arab and Muslim partners.
The result is not a revolt against the United States. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan all value their relationships with Washington. Rather, it is strategic insurance against a regional order in which Israel enjoys overwhelming military freedom of action and the United States can no longer be counted upon to restrain it.
The Mecca Pact’s Fear of Israeli Primacy
Thanks to American largesse and its commitment to maintaining Israeli military superiority in the region, Israel has long possessed the most sophisticated military establishment in the Middle East. What has changed is the regional perception of how that power is being used.
The devastation of Gaza, which many scholars equate with ethnic cleansing if not genocide, Israel’s expanding operations elsewhere in the region, and its attacks on Iran have together demonstrated an unprecedented willingness on its part to employ military power across state boundaries. Consequently, regional states feel that Israel has honed a strategy of striking adversaries almost at will and of shaping the regional order through force.
This is profoundly unsettling even for states that traditionally regarded Iran as a serious threat. Saudi Arabia has spent decades worrying about Iranian power. Turkey and Iran are historic competitors, while Pakistan has had a sometimes-difficult relationship with its western neighbor. But none of these countries wants the threat of Iranian power to be replaced by Israeli hegemony.
This distinction is essential to understanding the Mecca Pact. The fragmentation of the Muslim world has facilitated Israel’s overwhelming conventional superiority. No combination of regional Muslim powers has been able to balance it effectively. The Mecca agreement potentially begins to change that equation.
Saudi Arabia brings financial resources, energy power, advanced Western weapons, and enormous political influence. Turkey possesses arguably the strongest conventional military establishment in the Muslim Middle East, NATO experience, and an increasingly sophisticated defense industry producing drones, missiles, warships, and air-defense systems. Pakistan contributes a large professional military, considerable missile capabilities, and, uniquely, nuclear weapons.
The combination of Saudi money, Turkish conventional power, and Pakistani nuclear capability therefore creates the nucleus of an indigenous bloc capable of balancing against Israeli power.
The Problem of US Reliability
The second driving force leading to the Mecca Pact is declining confidence in Washington. This does not mean that America’s regional allies believe the United States is abandoning the Middle East entirely. The United States maintains formidable military capabilities throughout the region. Saudi Arabia has strengthened rather than severed its defense relationship with Washington, and Turkey remains a member of NATO. Finally, thanks to the personal chemistry between President Trump and Field Marshal Asim Munir, Washington considers Pakistan a useful partner.
The problem is more subtle. Regional governments increasingly question whether American power will be employed when their interests are threatened, and whether it may instead be employed in ways that threaten their interests. The limited American response to the 2019 attacks on Saudi oil facilities left a lasting impression on Riyadh; even a country deeply embedded in the American security system could suffer a major attack without a sufficient US response, at least from the Saudi perspective.
Recent events have added another dimension. The concern is no longer merely that Washington might fail to act. It is that Washington might act too aggressively at Israel’s urging. Netanyahu’s ability to influence Trump has become part of the strategic calculus for countries in the Middle East. The perception in several regional capitals is that the Israeli prime minister understands how to appeal to Trump’s instincts and can manipulate him to support military actions that advance Israel’s agenda even when they risk destabilizing the wider region and creating major strategic and economic problems for the United States itself.
Whether Netanyahu’s influence is actually as decisive as his critics believe is less important than the fact that the perception exists. States construct security policies not merely in response to capabilities but also according to their assessment of intentions and future risks.
From this perspective, an American security guarantee contains an uncomfortable contradiction. Washington may promise to defend its Arab and Muslim partners while simultaneously giving Israel the military and diplomatic latitude to pursue policies those same partners regard as profoundly destabilizing. The rider that Trump added to the recent Saudi-American nuclear deal that its implementation would depend on Riyadh recognizing Israel and joining the Abraham Accords has forcefully driven home the point that Washington’s policies toward the Middle East are largely made in Jerusalem.
Regional Insurance, Not US Divorce
However, the Mecca pact should not be interpreted as Saudi Arabia choosing Turkey and Pakistan over the United States. Riyadh is rather constructing overlapping security relationships to maximize its security. American power remains one layer. The Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani arrangement becomes another. Relations with China, diplomatic engagement with Iran, and Saudi Arabia’s broader effort to diversify its international partnerships provide additional layers. This is classic strategic hedging.
Turkey’s objectives fit comfortably within this framework. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought for years to establish Turkey as an autonomous center of power rather than merely NATO’s southeastern outpost. The pact enhances Turkish influence in the Gulf, provides opportunities for its rapidly expanding defense industry, and gives Ankara a central role in any emerging security system in the Middle East.
Pakistan gains geopolitical stature and Saudi support for its faltering economy. The clause in the agreement that unequivocally states that an attack on one signatory will be considered an attack on all three, thus evoking a joint response, will, in Pakistani calculations, engender enough uncertainty in New Delhi to preclude an Indian attack on its territory of the kind that took place in May 2025 following a major terrorist attack in Kashmir. The new arrangement also projects Pakistani influence westward and transforms its military, and inevitably its nuclear, status into a source of leverage across the broader Muslim world.
For the Mecca Pact, Iran Is Not the Issue
The pact is not primarily directed against Tehran as many observers assume. All three members have reasons to be wary of Iranian power, but they also have stronger reasons to prevent Iran’s destruction or permanent isolation. A shattered Iran could produce instability across the Gulf, Central Asia, and South Asia while removing one of the principal counterweights to Israeli military dominance.
Turkey and Pakistan have particularly compelling reasons to avoid such an outcome. They share long borders and restive ethnic minorities that inhabit both sides of their borders with Iran that threaten the territorial integrity of all three states. Consequently, they have common interests with Iran that are far more important to them than their differences with Tehran. In fact, the pact has the potential to become the foundation of a wider regional enterprise in which Iran can eventually be accommodated.
Toward a New Regional Order?
For most of the modern era, Middle Eastern security has been organized by external powers, first by the United Kingdom and France after World War I, and then by the United States after World War II. Regional states have generally been consumers rather than producers of security. The Mecca pact suggests that this may be beginning to change.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan increasingly appear unwilling to accept a regional system in which Israel possesses near-total freedom of military action. At the same time, Washington alone determines when and on whose behalf American power will be used. Their answer is not confrontation with either Israel or the United States. It is achieved by pooling indigenous capabilities so that they possess greater influence over the regional equilibrium and can avert the disastrous consequences of Israeli and American actions.
If the pact develops integrated military planning, intelligence cooperation, joint missile and air defenses, and defense-industrial coordination, and especially if other major Muslim states such as Egypt eventually associate themselves with it, the Mecca agreement could become the foundation of a new security architecture.
Washington has long demanded that its regional partners assume greater responsibility for their own defense. They are beginning to do so in the Middle East. But they are doing it in large part because they no longer trust Washington either to restrain Israel or to prevent American power from being used by Israel in ways that destabilize their neighborhood. The irony should not be lost on Washington.
About the Author: Mohammed Ayoob
Mohammed Ayoob is a university distinguished professor emeritus of International Relations at Michigan State University. His books include The Many Faces of Political Islam (Second Edition, 2020), Will the Middle East Implode? (2014), and, most recently, From Regional Security to Global IR: An Intellectual Journey (2024). He was also the editor of Assessing the War on Terror (2013).
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