By Qamar Bashir
Press Secretary to the President (Rtd)
Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France
Former Press Attaché to Malaysia
Former MD, SRBC | Michigan, USA
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan is being described as a Muslim version of NATO. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan himself said its collective defence clause is technically similar to NATO’s Article 5: an armed attack on one member will be treated as an attack on all. Yet most commentary has concentrated on the pact’s wording, its possible expansion and whether it is aimed at Iran or Israel. The more important question has received less attention: what threat does each signatory actually perceive?
Without answering that question, analysis of the agreement remains incomplete. Alliances do not acquire meaning merely from ceremonial signatures. Their real character is determined by the dangers their members fear, the capabilities they contribute and the circumstances in which they are prepared to act.
For Saudi Arabia, the immediate security environment is deeply paradoxical. The kingdom has long relied upon the United States, but the presence of American forces and facilities across the Gulf can also attract retaliation whenever Washington uses regional territory or infrastructure in military operations against Iran.
Tehran has repeatedly maintained that its quarrel is not with Gulf societies as such, but with military threats launched from or supported through their territories. Whether one accepts Iran’s justification or not, the underlying dilemma is real: foreign protection can simultaneously become a source of exposure.
This raises a difficult question. If foreign bases had not facilitated attacks against Iran, would Tehran have attacked Gulf countries on the same scale? The answer cannot be proven, but the question exposes Saudi Arabia’s strategic vulnerability. Riyadh wants protection without remaining permanently hostage to decisions made by an external guarantor.
Threats from the Houthis in Yemen and Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq remain serious, particularly for oil facilities, desalination plants, shipping and civilian infrastructure. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia has spent heavily on modern aircraft, missiles, surveillance systems and air defence. These dangers alone do not fully explain the need for an Article 5-style pact with Türkiye and nuclear-armed Pakistan.
The wider concern is Israel’s expanding military reach and the fear that no regional state can assume it will remain permanently outside Israeli calculations. The “Greater Israel” project is not merely a slogan invented by Israel’s critics. It is a documented ideological and political current rooted in expansionist interpretations of biblical territory, including the most extreme vision of land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and in revisionist Zionist ideas of sovereignty on both sides of the Jordan River.
Israel’s wars and military operations across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere have intensified regional fears that its use of force and territorial ambitions are becoming geographically unconstrained. Because the most expansive interpretation of Greater Israel encompasses territory belonging to several Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Riyadh has legitimate reasons to treat this ideology and Israel’s growing regional reach as a long-term strategic threat.
The Mecca agreement therefore creates strategic depth, reduces Saudi Arabia’s exclusive dependence on Washington and strengthens the kingdom’s leadership position in the Muslim world.
Türkiye enters the pact with a different threat map. It possesses NATO’s second-largest army, an increasingly sophisticated defence industry, formidable drone capabilities, warship and helicopter production, and substantial operational experience in Syria, Iraq and the eastern Mediterranean.
Kurdish militancy and instability along Türkiye’s southern borders remain persistent threats, but Ankara is largely capable of managing these challenges without Pakistani or Saudi military intervention.
The more consequential concern is Israel. Turkish and Israeli rhetoric has become increasingly hostile, while their strategic interests collide in Syria, Gaza and the broader eastern Mediterranean. Türkiye’s conventional size gives it considerable strength, but Israel is widely understood to possess nuclear weapons, while Türkiye does not. This creates a dangerous asymmetry at the highest level of escalation.
Pakistan’s participation therefore adds deterrent weight, but it is essential not to overstate what has formally been agreed. The published language does not establish an explicit Pakistani nuclear umbrella over Türkiye or Saudi Arabia. Nor does it automatically commit Islamabad to nuclear retaliation.
Its value at this stage lies in strategic ambiguity. Any adversary contemplating extreme escalation must now consider the possibility of a broader response involving a nuclear-armed partner. That uncertainty itself can reinforce deterrence, provided consultation mechanisms, command arrangements and red lines are eventually clarified.
Pakistan’s principal state-based threat remains India. Its other challenges—including attacks linked to the Pakistani Taliban, militancy operating from Afghan territory and insurgency in Balochistan—are grave but fall mainly within the domain of counterterrorism and internal security.
Islamabad has also alleged external support for certain militant networks, including from India and Israel other hostile actors, therefore the possibility of hybrid warfare designed to weaken Pakistan cannot be ignored.
The real test for the pact would come during a future India-Pakistan war. Saudi Arabia enjoys extensive economic and political relations with India, while Türkiye also has interests that extend beyond its partnership with Islamabad. Would Riyadh provide intelligence, logistics, financing, air defence or diplomatic support? Would it risk its relationship with New Delhi?
The treaty’s collective-defence formula is powerful, but it does not necessarily mean that every member must respond identically or automatically declare war. Even NATO’s Article 5 requires each ally to take such action as it considers necessary. The Mecca pact’s credibility will similarly depend on agreed procedures, operational planning, military integration and, above all, political will.
Nor should the alliance be framed as an anti-Iranian “Sunni bloc.” That description is analytically shallow and politically dangerous. It imports a sectarian narrative into an agreement whose signatories explicitly maintain that it is not directed against Iran or any other particular country.
Western and regional media extensively are using the Sunni label as convenient shorthand, but repeating it can deepen the very divisions that have repeatedly weakened the Muslim world. It risks presenting Sunni and Shia states as natural enemies, even though they share geography, economic interests, religious bonds and responsibility for regional stability.
Iran has demonstrated formidable missile, drone and asymmetric capabilities and has proven ability to impose severe costs on the combined military might of both the United States and Israel and their alliance in the Middle East and elsewhere in the entire world.
A confrontation between Iran and the combined forces of Pakistan, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia would devastate the region, rupture trade and energy routes, inflame sectarian tensions and serve none of the four countries.
The rational objective of the Mecca alliance should therefore be deterrence, collective security and strategic autonomy—not the creation of another front in the Iran war.
The wiser long-term course is to keep the pact open and eventually build a structured security dialogue with Iran. Immediate Iranian membership may be politically unrealistic while war and mistrust persist, but inclusion should remain a strategic objective.
Egypt and other regional countries could also participate in a broader security architecture based on non-aggression, collective consultation, protected shipping lanes, economic connectivity and respect for sovereignty.
The three signatories must also wage an intelligent information campaign. Through official statements, diplomatic outreach, legacy media, social platforms and other forms of communication, they should consistently reject the description of the agreement as a “Sunni NATO.”
They should explain that the pact is intended to protect its members from aggression regardless of the aggressor’s religious, sectarian or national identity. It must not be allowed to become an instrument for turning Muslim countries against one another.
The Mecca agreement will become historic only if it does more than redistribute fear. Properly developed, it can reduce dependence on outside powers, deter Israeli or other aggression, give Pakistan additional diplomatic weight and create the nucleus of an inclusive regional security system.
Mishandled as a sectarian coalition, however, it could produce precisely the confrontation it claims to prevent. Its success will therefore be measured not by how many enemies it names, but by how many wars it prevents.
