Commentators predictably reacted to the news of the signing of a mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan on August 7 by reaching for the label “Islamic Nato”. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement stipulates that an armed attack on any one of them would be treated as an attack on all. Jerusalem went a step further, describing the alliance as an anti-Israel alliance.
But the Nato comparison is the wrong framing. Three of America’s own partners have bound themselves together – and the most consequential audience for what they signed sits not in Tehran or Tel Aviv but in Washington. The agreement reads, in effect, as a verdict on American reliability.
