The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement is likely to be viewed by Tehran as a major success resulting from its aerial attacks on Gulf states, regardless of how strong the new pact proves to be, experts told The Jerusalem Post late Monday.
Emirati researcher and foreign policy expert Huda Albadi told the Post that the pact was ineffectual, describing it as a “paper tiger.” Albadi warned that it was a sign of a concerning regional mentality that would see Israel cast as the destabilizing power, not Iran.
Though the countries announced in their joint statement on Friday that an attack on any of the trio, Pakistan, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, would be seen as an attack on them all, Iranian deputy energy minister Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi said on Sunday that arrangements had been made for Iran to import 450 megawatts of electricity from Turkey.
The announcement came the same day that the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist organization attacked a Saudi Arabian oil refinery and after months of attacks from Iran and its proxies in Iraq.
“Saudi Arabia has not taken any action against any of the aggressors attacking its territory, meaning Iran, the Houthis, and the militias in Iraq. They have not done anything about it,” she said.
“However, they are looking at Israel as if it is the enemy. It is delusional at this point because you are being attacked on a daily basis by other aggressors, but you are focusing on a country that is not interested in you and has nothing to do with you.”
For Turkey, pact part of aspirations of Ottoman Empire
For Ankara, Albadi said the pact was part of its aspirations to return to the days of the powerful and expansive Ottoman Empire. “They try to meddle in every country they can, and it is not surprising coming from a government that is literally the Muslim Brotherhood. That is what they do. But I don’t think they are going to get anything out of it,” she said.
Though not speaking on behalf of the pact, only a day after the agreement was announced, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told Pakistan media that there should be “a united military front” against Israel, which he described as a “threat to the entire Muslim world.”
“Their attitude towards the Palestinians and their anti-Islamic mindset will not disappear. They continue to incite Muslim countries against each other,” the minister said, seemingly pointing blame at Israel for the attacks from Iran on Muslim states.
Albadi said that she doubted that any of the three countries truly placed blame on Israel. However, she noted that the Jewish state was a convenient scapegoat to avoid confronting Iran and its more domestic supporters.
Though Sunni majority countries, Pakistan has between 20 and 40 million Shi’ites, Saudi Arabia has between two and four million, and Turkey has between seven and 20 million, according to official estimates and census data.
“Of course, they will come up with this propaganda or this narrative because that is the way to make it convenient for them, so Iran can back down. But Iran is not going to back down,” she said. “Its actions, over and over again, have proven that its track record is really bad with any country you can think of. [Iran] has broken every agreement… and then has the audacity to act like it is the victim.”
Iran seemingly welcomed the opportunity to adopt that narrative on Monday, when Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei celebrated the countries’ embrace of more regional powers in place of the US.
“Any plan that is based on the geopolitical and historical realities of the region, is comprehensive and inclusive, and correctly identifies the enemy and the threat, has a chance of helping to strengthen security and prevent instability and abuses by the Zionist enemy and its allies,” he added, referring to Israel.
As part of that convenient framing, the pact has also taken on a notably Sunni-Islamic religious identity, she said.
“Even in the official statement that came out of this pact, it says the pact is built on Islamic relations. It is very odd in this day and age for a country, for a state, to build relations and pacts based on religion.
We are not in the seventh century. We are in 2026, yet people still use religion to appease others and appeal to their emotions,” Albadi said.
“People in the Middle East are very emotional about their religion, and when they hear that the country that holds the two holy mosques is doing something, it carries a lot of weight.”
A Muslim alliance 'against the enemies of the region,' Israel
Even though Iran began attacking its fellow Islamic countries during Ramadan, “they want to give [the impression] that this alliance is a Muslim alliance and an alliance against the enemies of the region, and what they mean by that is basically Israel.”
International relations expert Dr. Arman Mahmoudian, a research fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute, told the Post that, outside of further complicating Jerusalem’s aspirations to normalize with Riyadh, it also showed efforts to reduce dependence on “any single external security guarantor,” potentially reducing the weight that Washington has in the region.
“One of the incentives behind Saudi normalization with Israel had been the possibility that it could facilitate a broader package with Washington, including stronger US security commitments and cooperation on civilian nuclear energy,” he said.
“If Riyadh believes that Turkey and Pakistan can supplement its security architecture, the urgency of reaching such an arrangement through normalization with Israel diminishes somewhat.”
Still, Mahmoudian advised that the “agreement should not necessarily be interpreted as Riyadh joining an explicitly anti-Israel bloc,” even if Pakistan doesn’t recognize Israel and Turkey has maintained an “extremely strained political relationship.”
He suggested that Riyadh has not yet “shut the door” on the possibility of normalizing with Israel if political circumstances change, “particularly if there is meaningful movement on the Palestinian issue.”
Mahmoudian also claimed that Tehran would have a more complicated perspective on the agreement than what Baghaei was willing to admit.
“On the one hand, Iran will be uncomfortable with the emergence of a security framework bringing together Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan,” he outlined.
“These are three major Sunni powers; Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, and Turkey has one of the region’s strongest conventional militaries. Particularly following the recent confrontation between Iran and the Gulf states, Tehran cannot completely dismiss the possibility that part of the agreement’s purpose is to strengthen deterrence against Iran and Iran-aligned actors.”
However, he said, Tehran is likely happy that security arrangements are being sought without the US’s involvement. Moreover, he continued, “if closer Saudi cooperation with Turkey and Pakistan makes normalization with Israel more difficult, that would certainly be welcomed in Tehran.”
“I would characterize the agreement less as the emergence of a coherent ‘Sunni NATO’ and more as another indication that the Middle East is moving toward a more fragmented and multi-polar security architecture, in which states are hedging by developing several overlapping partnerships, rather than relying exclusively on one alliance or great power,” he concluded.