The Mecca Defense Pact Looks Toothless. That Doesn’t Mean It’s Harmless.

Excerpt On Friday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, committing each state to treating an armed attack on one as an attack on all. Two days later, Iranian-backed Houthi forces struck an Aramco refinery in southwest Saudi Arabia with a drone, the latest in a long run of strikes on the kingdom. There was no collective response and no visible sign that anything had changed. Can these three states actually operate a NATO-style guarantee? Sinan Ciddi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and director of the Turkey program. Ahmad Sharawi is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.