Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey Alliance Faces Test From History of Broken Mideast Coalitions

PAST ALLIANCES IN THE MIDDLE EAST REVEAL WHY THE MECCA PACT MAY NOT HOLD

Pakistani troops helped King Hussein II crush a Palestinian uprising in Jordan in 1970. That detail, buried in the history of a country now presenting itself as a champion of Palestinian causes, captures something essential about the Mecca Pact announced on August 7, 2026. The Saudi Arabia-Pakistan-Turkey coalition generated cautious optimism across Western capitals and regional governments, promising a counterweight to Iranian influence, a shield for Saudi Arabia against potential aggression, and a unified Sunni voice on regional conflicts. The region’s long record of failed partnerships, however, suggests the pact rests on foundations that could crumble the moment real pressure arrives.

The structural weaknesses run deep. The Middle East has repeatedly failed to sustain cooperative alliances, a pattern rooted in competing national interests and the absence of binding enforcement mechanisms. Two obstacles stand out as particularly intractable: no genuine tradition of collective security exists, and the states themselves remain chronically unstable.

The Arab League offers an instructive case. Founded before the United Nations itself, it was meant to embody Arab unity and collective action. In practice, it has functioned as a symbolic gathering place. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, a champion of Arab solidarity, merged Egypt and Syria into the United Arab Republic, only to watch the federation collapse under political disagreement. He then launched the first inter-Arab war by intervening in Yemen’s civil war from 1962 to 1970. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, another self-proclaimed Arab leader, ordered the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In both instances, the Arab League proved powerless to prevent conflict or enforce collective security commitments.

The Baghdad Pact of 1955, later renamed the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was designed as a Middle Eastern equivalent to NATO, drawing in Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. Local rivalries constrained its reach from the start. Afghanistan declined membership because of its territorial dispute with Pakistan over the Pashtunistan question. When Iraq’s government fell in 1958, CENTO survived. When Iran’s Islamic Revolution erupted in 1979, it did not. Iraq then abandoned its 1975 agreement with Iran, and Saddam invaded. Internal upheaval and regional competition dismantled the alliance entirely.

More recent efforts have met similar fates. The Gulf Cooperation Council, established in 1981 to counter Iran’s revolutionary influence, fractured from 2017 to 2021 when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates isolated Qatar. Pakistan’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban, once rooted in shared religious and ideological ties, has turned adversarial. In the 1990s, Turkey and Israel built military and intelligence partnerships with genuine promise. Then the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party reversed course entirely. Turkey now aligns with Hamas, a terrorist organization, and Turkish officials employ inflammatory language toward Israel. The Arab Spring sparked multiple proposals for an “Arab NATO,” none of which succeeded. Gulf Arab states recently rejected an Egyptian proposal for a broader Arab defense alliance.

The Mecca Pact faces immediate fractures on three critical issues. On Gaza, Turkey openly backs Hamas while Saudi Arabia views the group with deep suspicion, particularly given Qatar’s close relationship with Hamas. On Israel, the three nations diverge sharply: Turkey maintains ties but escalates tensions; Saudi Arabia has no formal relations but quietly explores normalization; Pakistan, one of the region’s most rejectionist states after Iran, carries a complicated history with Palestinian causes despite its current pro-Palestinian rhetoric. That 1970 episode in Jordan is a reminder of how far rhetoric and reality can diverge.

Turkey emerges as the pact’s weakest link. Erdogan’s foreign policy oscillates between Russia, Europe, and the United States, yet his commitment to political Islam remains constant. Despite his friendship with President Donald Trump, Erdogan stands among the region’s most prominent supporters of Islamist groups. This ideological orientation conflicts fundamentally with Saudi Arabia’s vision of regional stability, which opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, even as Riyadh supports Yemen’s Islah party and the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Lasting cooperation demands more than tactical alignment. It requires shared values and genuine trust. The Mecca Pact lacks both. When the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked Saudi Arabia with drones and missiles, Pakistan took no action, despite an earlier alliance with Riyadh. The question the pact’s architects have not answered is what, precisely, would compel any of the three partners to act when the next crisis arrives and the costs of doing so outweigh the benefits of standing aside.