New Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey alliance driven by failure of US to subdue Iran

The new alliance between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is designed to counter Iran’s apparent resilience to the US-Israel military attack. But it may also try to sideline Israel.

As the war against Iran entered an unstable status quo and the Gulf states try to find a way to export their energy products while passing through the Strait of Hormuz, one conclusion is becoming clear – Iran is here to stay, and its neighbours need to come up with new means to constrain its malign regional influence.

The American-Israeli military campaign against Tehran failed to topple the regime or impose any limitations on its nuclear and missile capabilities. Even worse, the war exposed the limitations of the US military in deterring Iran and protecting the Gulf states from Iranian missile and UAV attacks.

This is the context in which the announcement of the Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish trilateral defence agreement, dubbed the “Mecca Pact”, should be seen. The high-profile public declaration reflects, more than anything else, Saudi Arabia’s desperate need to come up with a strategic mechanism that will protect the kingdom, and its highly vulnerable oil production industry, from being hit by Iran and its proxies operating from Iraq and Yemen.

It should be remembered that the Saudis already signed, in September last year, a bilateral strategic defence agreement with Pakistan, but its deterrent effect on Iran has obviously been nonexistent. Even though in April Pakistan deployed 16 fighter jets, air defence systems, and approximately 8,000 troops, Tehran seems to be giving little importance to this military presence in its calculations.

Faced with the ongoing Iranian threats and the relentless attacks by the Houthis and Iraqi Shiite militias on its oil facilities, and taking into consideration the overt American preference not to reengage militarily with Iran, the Saudis felt compelled to widen their strategic military cooperation with another regional force, in the hope that such a move would create the necessary deterrence balance with Iran.