Recently, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan met in the Islamic holy city of Mecca and signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement. While promoting the agreement, Pakistan defense minister Khawaja Asif said, “I think Muslim countries should keep their differences, transactional or bilateral disputes aside, on the lines of NATO, and stand together.” The minister alluded to the collective security principle of NATO that an attack on one is an attack against all.
The creation of the religious military group, however, feeds the pessimistic Clash of Civilizations theory and undermines the Abraham Accords, which aimed at promoting peace and stability in the Middle East through dialogue and cooperation.
Debidatta A. Mahapatra
– Original Credit: Courtesy photo
The Abraham Accords Declaration, developed in 2020, aimed at promoting “interfaith and intercultural dialogue to advance a culture of peace among the three Abrahamic religions and all humanity,” while “maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence.” The Accords, brokered by the United States, already witnessed success as the United Arab Emirates and a few other countries in the region normalized, or were in the process of normalizing, relations with Israel.
Interestingly, one could find a striking similarity between the principles of the Accords and the Dialogue among Civilizations as promoted by Iranian leaders like Mohammad Khatami. Khatami wrote in the United Nations Chronicle in 2012, “I believe a common objective must be defined for dialogue: namely, fighting extremism and dangerous prejudices that may be found in any religion, culture, and civilization in the East or the West.” The Accords, like Khatami’s Dialogue among Civilizations, captured an optimistic vision for humanity and, despite deep-seated animosity among countries in the Middle East, gained some success.
There are more questions than answers as to what exact direction the Islamic NATO would take in the coming months. It, however, served a symbolic purpose. While ideas like the Muslim Brotherhood encompassed more of an ideological and religious vision, the Islamic NATO appeared to take that vision a step further by supporting it with political, economic and military muscle. Saudi Arabia, with its oil and financial resources; Turkey, with its NATO membership and technological power; and Pakistan, with its nuclear forces, appear to make it an ideal combination and an alternate power bloc without any major global power in it.
The leaders of these countries, with their high-context culture, which implies an overt emphasis on symbols and optics, might rejoice at the launch of the Islamic NATO, but they have yet to grapple with these questions. Would Iran, which attacked Saudi Arabia this year and which had clashes with Pakistan, be a part of this Islamic group? Would it be called a Sunni NATO as it would potentially exclude Shia countries like Iran? How would this group approach non-state actors like the Houthis, which have targeted countries like Saudi Arabia? How would this Islamic NATO manage its relations with the NATO led by the US? Would such a religious military group also give rise to a Christian NATO, a Buddhist NATO, or other religious military groups? Political theorist Samuel P. Huntington envisioned in the 1990s that conflicts would be fought along religious fault lines, and the creation of the Islamic NATO appeared to corroborate such a vision. It further undermined a vision of international relations that valued secular states and, as outlined in the Abraham Accords, aimed at advancing a culture of peace among all humanity.
Seema Shekhawat
The defense agreement has already caused concerns in South Asia, with the major player in the region, India, exploring options. The development might further strengthen India-Israel relations, and there are speculations that countries like Greece and Cyprus could join Israel and India to develop a counter bloc.
It will also be interesting to see how major powers like the U.S., China and Russia approach such a development. All these countries are multiethnic and pluralistic, with significant minority populations, and hence such a religious military group, it would be remiss not to note that the group was announced at the holiest shrine of Islam, would run counter to the democratic vision captured in the words “we the people” and celebrated on the occasion of the 250th year of American independence.
Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra is professor of political science at Florida State College at Jacksonville. Seema Shekhawat is assistant professor of international relations and comparative politics at the University of North Florida.