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Throughout history, the Middle East has been subject to intervention by global hegemonic powers —primarily the United States— due to both its trade routes and its natural resources. Looking specifically at the past quarter-century, it is evident that the strategies pursued by successive Washington administrations and Tel Aviv have been far from fostering peace and resolving conflicts. Every U.S. intervention in the region, made under the pretext of resolving problems, has only exacerbated existing issues and created new crises. When combined with Israel’s unilateral, lawless, annexationist, and borderless interventions in the region, this has made the security impasse in the region chronic. The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signed between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan is a crucial step toward rescuing the region from the spiral of instability it has been caught in since the early 2000s, and it emerged as a response to a pressing need. Signed on August 7, 2026, the agreement emerged as a response to the need for a regional security architecture that the Middle East has long lacked. Although the timing of this development—in an environment where the Israel/U.S.-Iran war is exerting pressure on a broad range of issues, from energy to the economy, both locally and globally—might lead one to conclude that the agreement is a consequence of the war, officials have stated that the agreement had been in the planning stages for nearly three years. The combination of Turkey’s military power, Saudi Arabia’s financial power, and Pakistan’s nuclear power has influenced the security perceptions of countries in the region. However, it has been noted that the agreement is open to all countries in the region, particularly Egypt. Indeed, Hakan Fidan has stated in previous interviews that this agreement is “a product of the concept of regional ownership” and that “the alliance was established with the intention of expanding.”
Within the scope of this analysis, the Mecca Alliance will be examined based on known details; a framework will be established by addressing the questions of “why” and “how”; and it will be compared with similar alliances that were formed or attempted in the past. Subsequently, the perspectives of regional countries—particularly Egypt and Iran—on the Pact, their foreign policies and international relations, as well as the comments of regional analysts regarding the likelihood of these states’ participation, will be addressed.
The Causes and The Timing
The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement was signed on August 7, 2026. The first meeting of the Strategic, Political, and Defense Committee established under the agreement was held in Istanbul on August 31. At this meeting, it was decided to establish a secretariat for the alliance in Riyadh and to appoint a Pakistani national as secretary-general for a term of three years. This step is highly significant in terms of the alliance’s institutionalization and affirmation of its existence. According to Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the process leading to the agreement began at the end of 2023, which means it coincided with the October 7 attacks. Fidan has frequently stated that the alliance is open to all participants who comply with the agreement’s procedures and international law.
The power struggles among regional countries, conflicting interests, and ethnic and sectarian disputes have not only undermined regional security but have also made the region more vulnerable to external intervention; indeed, this climate of insecurity has even served to legitimize certain forms of external intervention. Despite the existence of numerous organizations such as the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, all of them have proven inadequate when it comes to taking steps toward regional security and have been unable to take the initiative. Indeed, they are not security organizations. Efforts aimed at development have failed to yield results due to the inability to establish a stable environment. The path to economic, cultural, scientific, and other forms of development and cooperation in the region begins with military cooperation. This is because the failure of regional countries to ensure their own security leads to further escalation of unrest through external interventions. The primary objective of this alliance is to create an alternative regional security framework to counter the major powers that use the region’s security as a pretext to justify intervention, and to establish a deterrent against aggressive, lawless actors such as Israel.
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