The Mecca Pact: An alliance on paper
The Houthis’ advance in Yemen and the growing number of attacks against Saudi Arabia can no longer be viewed as merely a resurgence of the Yemeni civil war. They reveal a profound shift in the balance of power across the Middle East.
Threatened along its southern border, struck at its energy infrastructure, and increasingly concerned about its export routes, the kingdom is discovering, all at once, the limits of its military power, Washington’s hesitations, and the fragility of its new alliances.
Above all, the crisis is subjecting the defense agreement concluded in Mecca among Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan to its first real test. Presented as the beginning of a new regional security architecture, the pact was meant to establish that an attack on one of its members would concern the other two.
Saudi Arabia is now under attack. Yet, for the moment, each of its partners is consulting, watching, and playing for time.
The Promise in Mecca, the Test in Yemen
The contrast is striking. The agreement proclaims collective solidarity, but appears to have neither an integrated command structure, nor forces assigned in advance, nor an automatic mechanism for intervention. Its full text and operational protocols have not been made public.
Pakistan’s caution provides the first illustration. Islamabad does not want to jeopardize its relations with neighboring Iran or be drawn into a regional confrontation alongside Saudi Arabia and, indirectly, the United States. Pakistani public opinion would also have difficulty accepting an operation that could be portrayed as serving Israeli interests.
Turkey, too, intends to preserve its freedom of action. Ankara may offer intelligence, equipment, training, or mediation. It does not appear willing to commit its forces to a war whose objectives or duration it would not control. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will most likely seek to turn Saudi vulnerability into an instrument of Turkish influence rather than a military obligation.
The Mecca Pact is therefore not entirely hollow. It can facilitate joint exercises, industrial cooperation, arms sales, and intelligence sharing. Above all, it allows Riyadh to display its determination to diversify its partnerships and remind Washington that the kingdom has other options.
But the crisis exposes the crucial difference between a declaration of solidarity and a genuine military alliance. For now, the pact looks more like a document to be brandished than a mechanism designed to act.
In Mecca, the signatories proclaimed that an attack on one would be the concern of all. In Yemen, each is discovering that it remains, first and foremost, the concern of the country under attack.
Mohammed bin Salman’s Strategic Solitude
Saudi Arabia has one of the most expensive and best-equipped militaries in the Middle East. It possesses modern aircraft, air defense systems, and immense financial resources. But the war it launched in 2015 demonstrated that technological superiority alone was not enough to defeat a movement deeply rooted in Yemeni territory.
After seven years of a costly and politically fruitless campaign, Riyadh has no desire to plunge back into a war with no clearly defined endgame. Yet allowing the Houthis to advance toward southern ports and positions controlling the Bab el-Mandeb Strait would pose a direct threat to the kingdom’s vital interests.
Saudi vulnerability now stems from the convergence of three dangers: Iranian disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, Houthi pressure on Bab el-Mandeb, and attacks on the East–West Pipeline leading to the port of Yanbu.
The kingdom’s three principal oil export routes could therefore be threatened simultaneously. Saudi Arabia’s geography, long regarded as a source of protection, is becoming a trap.
Riyadh is thus discovering a form of strategic solitude: many partners, several agreements, and immense arsenals—but no certainty that an ally will actually agree to fight when the danger becomes real.
Washington: The Hesitant Patron
In these circumstances, Mohammed bin Salman naturally turned to the United States. But Washington appears more willing to provide intelligence and technical assistance than to open a new front against the Houthis.
This restraint sends a message that extends far beyond the Saudi case. American protection has not disappeared, but it has become conditional, selective, and transactional.
The United States wants to preserve its influence without necessarily assuming the military cost of every crisis. Donald Trump appears reluctant to commit his country to another campaign in Yemen while Washington is already confronting Iran directly.
Saudi Arabia had sought to diversify its relations with China, Russia, Turkey, and Pakistan while continuing to benefit from the American security umbrella. It is now discovering that multiplying partnerships does not automatically produce collective defense.
The kingdom remains dependent on Washington, but Washington no longer wants to be automatically bound by Riyadh’s choices. That is the fundamental ambiguity of their relationship.
Turkey and Israel: The Line Between Rhetoric and War
Turkey’s position, however, deserves particular attention. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rhetoric against Israel can be extraordinarily virulent. Ankara politically supports Hamas, denounces Israeli operations, pursues legal action against Israel, and seeks to expand its military influence in Syria.
Yet this rhetoric encounters a line Turkey can hardly afford to cross: direct military confrontation with Israel.
Israel has the means to strike Turkish positions that could threaten its freedom of action in Syria. Turkey remains a member of NATO and still depends heavily on its strategic relationship with Washington. A war initiated by Ankara against Israel would by no means trigger automatic solidarity from the Atlantic alliance.
More important, Turkey does not want Iran to dominate the regional balance of power, the Houthis to establish lasting control over Bab el-Mandeb, or Saudi Arabia to collapse. Behind Ankara’s overt hostility toward Israel, therefore, lies a fundamental divergence with Iran and its allies.
The clearest evidence of this constraint is the existence of technical contacts between the Turkish and Israeli militaries intended to prevent a collision in Syria. Ankara can publicly denounce Israel while quietly seeking the arrangements needed to prevent an uncontrolled confrontation.
Turkey’s red line is therefore clear: challenging Israel, certainly; confronting it directly at the risk of breaking with Washington, fracturing NATO, and losing control of the Syrian chessboard, far less likely.
The Mecca Pact does not resolve this contradiction. It makes it more visible. Turkey can promise Saudi Arabia solidarity against the Houthis without accepting that this solidarity should draw it into a coalition that includes Israel or an open war against Iran.
Israel: Useful but Unspeakable
Yet American hesitation and the limits of the Mecca Pact bring Israel back to the center of the equation.
Saudi Arabia and Israel share a major strategic interest: preventing Iran and its allies from threatening the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb simultaneously. The security of Saudi exports, freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, and access to the Israeli port of Eilat now belong to the same strategic geography.
Israel also possesses capabilities that would be particularly useful to Riyadh: intelligence, satellite surveillance, launch detection, missile defense, electronic warfare, and operational experience against Houthi drones and missiles.
The more uncertain American protection appears, the more Israel’s strategic value increases. But the more the regional conflict intensifies, the more politically difficult it becomes to acknowledge such cooperation.
Official Israeli assistance would expose Mohammed bin Salman to hostility from segments of Saudi public opinion, criticism related to Gaza and the Palestinian question, and Houthi propaganda. The Houthis would immediately portray the kingdom as Israel’s auxiliary.
Such cooperation would also embarrass Pakistan and conflict with Turkey’s anti-Israel posture. The Mecca Pact therefore brings together three countries that may share certain threats but do not define either Israel or Iran in the same way.
Drawing Closer in the Shadows, Moving Apart in Public
A closer security relationship accompanied by greater political distance would hardly be unprecedented in the Middle East.
Egypt provides the oldest example. Since the 1979 peace treaty, its relations with Israel have remained cold. Normalization between the two societies never truly followed the peace established between the two states. Yet their security cooperation has deepened, particularly in the fight against jihadist groups in the Sinai, the monitoring of Gaza, and the protection of their shared border.
Israel has notably agreed to allow Egypt to deploy military assets in the Sinai beyond those originally authorized under the treaty’s annexes. The two governments can therefore clash publicly over Gaza while regarding their security cooperation as indispensable.
Jordan offers a second precedent. Amman sharply criticizes Israeli policy, sometimes recalls its ambassador, and must take into account a public that strongly supports the Palestinians. Yet border, military, and intelligence cooperation remains essential to both countries.
In April 2024, Jordan intercepted Iranian drones crossing its airspace on their way toward Israel. It described the operation as a defense of Jordanian sovereignty rather than assistance to Israel—a distinction that was politically necessary, though militarily rather transparent.
Turkey itself has previously practiced this two-tiered diplomacy. Following the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, political relations deteriorated profoundly, yet some economic ties and security channels remained in place. The restoration of diplomatic relations in 2022 was itself preceded and facilitated by intelligence contacts.
These precedents shed light on a possible future for Israeli-Saudi relations. Riyadh could maintain its diplomatic distance, demand progress on the Palestinian issue, and condemn certain Israeli operations while quietly cooperating in areas directly affecting its security.
Closer security ties would not necessarily lead to political normalization. The two developments might even occur simultaneously: greater cooperation in the shadows and greater distance on public display.
Iran and the Three-Chokepoint Strategy
The principal beneficiary of the crisis, at least for now, remains Iran.
Without confronting Saudi Arabia directly, Tehran and its allies can exert pressure on the kingdom’s three principal export routes: the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the pipeline linking the country’s eastern region to Yanbu.
This strategy allows Iran to influence Saudi revenues, global oil prices, trade between Asia and Europe, and American military decision-making—all at the same time. It also demonstrates how a relatively inexpensive network of militias and allied movements can hold at bay states with vastly superior conventional capabilities.
Seizing strategic positions around Bab el-Mandeb would turn the Houthis into unavoidable players in global trade. Even without closing the strait entirely, they could drive up insurance premiums, divert shipping around the Cape of Good Hope, and maintain a permanent threat to energy supplies.
The Houthis might not win a conventional war. They would not need to. They would merely have to make the cost of insecurity permanent.
Vision 2030 Under Missile Fire
For Mohammed bin Salman, the danger is not solely military. His legitimacy rests largely on a promise of modernization: jobs, housing, foreign investment, tourism, and economic transformation.
Vision 2030, the 2030 World Expo, and the 2034 FIFA World Cup all require lasting stability. Repeated attacks against cities, ports, and oil facilities could slow investment, increase security spending, and erode confidence in the government’s ability to protect the country.
The growing repression of critics, documented by human rights advocates, probably reflects this nervousness. The authorities fear that a question may eventually take hold among the Saudi population: How can a state so wealthy, so heavily armed, and surrounded by so many partners remain so vulnerable?
The social contract Mohammed bin Salman offers Saudi society is based less on political openness than on prosperity and security. If both promises begin to falter at the same time, domestic coercion is likely to replace consent to an even greater extent.
The Alliances’ Moment of Truth
Ultimately, the crisis reveals four realities.
The first is that the Mecca Pact remains a declaratory alliance in search of binding obligations. Its diplomatic prestige has so far exceeded its demonstrated military capacity.
The second is that Turkey cannot freely turn its anti-Israel rhetoric into military confrontation. Its interests in Syria, its NATO membership, and its rivalry with Iran impose limits that its public statements seek to obscure.
The third is that the United States remains indispensable, even when it chooses not to intervene directly. None of Riyadh’s new alliances yet possesses the means to replace American intelligence, logistics, and power-projection capabilities.
The fourth is that Israel may become an increasingly necessary security partner without becoming a diplomatically acceptable one. The future of Israeli-Saudi relations probably already exists, but it may remain invisible for a long time.
Saudi Arabia thus faces a difficult choice: negotiate with the Houthis and, behind them, with Iran; resume a war whose cost it already knows; or accept closer cooperation with the United States and Israel, at the risk of contradicting part of its regional narrative.
The Mecca Pact was intended to signal the emergence of a new security order. Its first test shows, above all, that alliances abound in the Middle East—but allies become much harder to find once the shooting starts.
