{"id":243377,"date":"2026-08-10T12:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/243377\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T12:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:48:10","slug":"expert-iran-sees-saudi-turkey-pakistan-defense-pact-as-a-major-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/243377\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert: Iran sees Saudi, Turkey, Pakistan defense pact as a major win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement<\/a> is likely to be viewed by Tehran<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Emirati researcher and foreign policy expert Huda Albadi told The Post that the pact was ineffectual, describing it as a \u201cpaper tiger,\u201d but warned that it was a sign of a concerning regional mentality emerging that would see Israel cast as the destabilizing power, not Iran.<\/p>\n

Though the countries announced in their joint statement on Friday that an attack on any of the trio, Pakistan, Turkey<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaudi 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,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TurkishTurkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chat after signing a joint defense agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 7, 2026. (credit: Murat Cetinmuhurdar\/Turkish Presidential Press Office\/Handout via REUTERS)For Turkey, pact part of aspirations of Ottoman Empire<\/p>\n

For Ankara<\/a>, Albadi said the pact was part of its aspirations to return to the days of the powerful and expansive Ottoman Empire. \u201cThey 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\u2019t think they are going to get anything out of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Though not speaking on behalf of the pact, only a day after the agreement was announced, Pakistan\u2019s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told Pakistan media that there should be \u201ca united military front\u201d against Israel, which he described as a \u201cthreat to the entire Muslim world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir attitude towards the Palestinians and their anti-Islamic mindset will not disappear. They continue to incite Muslim countries against each other,\u201d he said, seemingly pointing blame at Israel for the attacks from Iran on Muslim states.<\/p>\n

Albadi said that she doubted that any of the three countries truly placed blame on Israel, but that the Jewish state was a convenient scapegoat to avoid confronting Iran and Iran\u2019s more domestic supporters. Though Sunni majority countries, Pakistan has between 20 and 40 million Shi\u2019ites, Saudi Arabia has between two and four million, and Turkey has between seven and 20 million, according to official estimates and census data.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf 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,\u201d she said. \u201cIts actions, over and over again, have proven that its track record is really bad with any country you can think of. They have broken every agreement they have had\u2026 and then have the audacity to act like they are the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

As part of that convenient framing, the pact has also taken on a notably Sunni-Islamic religious identity, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven 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,\u201d Albadi said. \u201cPeople 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Muslim alliance ‘against the enemies of the region,’ Israel<\/p>\n

Even though Iran began attacking its fellow Islamic countries during Ramadan, \u201cthey want to give 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

International relations expert Dr. Arman Mahmoudian, a research fellow at the University of South Florida\u2019s Global and National Security Institute, told The Post that outside of further complicating Jerusalem\u2019s aspirations to normalize with Riyadh, it also showed efforts to reduce dependence on \u201cany single external security guarantor,\u201d potentially reducing the weight that Washington has in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne 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,\u201d he said. \u201cIf Riyadh believes that Turkey and Pakistan can supplement its security architecture, the urgency of reaching such an arrangement through normalization with Israel diminishes somewhat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Mahmoudian advised that the \u201cagreement should not necessarily be interpreted as Riyadh joining an explicitly anti-Israel bloc,\u201d even if Pakistan doesn\u2019t recognize Israel and Turkey has maintained an \u201cextremely strained political relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggested that Riyadh has not yet \u201cshut the door\u201d on the possibility of normalizing with Israel if political circumstances change, \u201cparticularly if there is meaningful movement on the Palestinian issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahmoudian also claimed that Tehran would have a more complicated perspective on the agreement than what Baghaei was willing to admit.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand, Iran will be uncomfortable with the emergence of a security framework bringing together Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan,\u201d he outlined. \u2018These are three major Sunni powers; Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, and Turkey has one of the region\u2019s 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\u2019s purpose is to strengthen deterrence against Iran and Iran-aligned actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he said, Tehran is likely to view positively the fact that security arrangements are being sought without the US\u2019s involvement. Moreover, he continued, \u201cif closer Saudi cooperation with Turkey and Pakistan makes normalization with Israel more difficult, that would certainly be welcomed in Tehran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would characterize the agreement less as the emergence of a coherent \u2018Sunni NATO\u2019 and more as another indication that the Middle East is moving toward a more fragmented and multipolar security architecture, in which states are hedging by developing several overlapping partnerships rather than relying exclusively on one alliance or great power,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement is likely to be viewed by Tehran as a major success resulting from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[18790,34,424,42328,67943,6415,650,2253,50,69,1176],"class_list":["post-243377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-erdogan","tag-iran","tag-irgc","tag-mecca","tag-mecca-joint-defense-agreement","tag-mohammed-bin-salman","tag-pakistan","tag-palestinians","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-tehran","tag-turkey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117071295923002026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}