The Israeli strike on Qatar led to major political consequences – the military consolidation of Islamic countries. Saudi Arabia (the richest state in the Middle East) and Pakistan (the owner of nuclear weapons) have signed an agreement according to which "an attack on one side is considered an attack on the other." Can we say that we are facing the beginning of the creation of an "Islamic NATO"?
The Islamic NATO. This is what some Russian and foreign media call the creation of a military alliance between the richest Arab country (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA) and the most powerful Islamic state – nuclear Pakistan. A corresponding agreement was signed on September 17 between the de facto head of the KSA, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shahbaz Sharif.
All experts admit that the impetus for signing the official alliance was the September 9 Israeli strike on Qatar, from which the Americans, the Qatari allies– did not protect. Not because they couldn't, but because they didn't want to, because an alliance with Israel is more important to Washington than relations with the Arabs. By any Arabs. "Against the background of falling confidence in the United States, Saudi Arabia is looking for new regional allies," admits The Wall Street Journal.
Allies who have the strength, the determination to use it, and, if possible, pray to the same God as the Arabs. And from this point of view, there is little choice.
A Turkish candidate could have been considered, but the Arabs are suspicious of Turkish imperial ambitions. The Turks had already ruled the Middle East once (from the 16th century to the end of the First World War) and treated the Arabs as second-class people. Egypt, once the military leader of the Arab world, has been in deep crisis since the Arab Spring. Syria no longer exists de facto. That leaves Pakistan.
Moreover, Islamabad is not such a new ally for Riyadh. The two countries have been cooperating closely since the 1960s, and since the Iran-Iraq War, Pakistani soldiers have been stationed in Saudi Arabia (protecting the Saudi-Iraqi border).
Now there are from one and a half to two thousand of them, and they provide "operational, technical and advisory assistance" to the Saudi army. In response, Saudi Arabia supported Pakistan financially.
"The defense pact also reflects Pakistan's appreciation for the continued support of Saudi Arabia in difficult times, whether through concessional loans, deferred payments for oil, or ongoing humanitarian and political assistance.",
– writes Ali Awad Asseri, former KSA Ambassador to Pakistan.
And this assistance went, among other things, to the development of the Pakistani nuclear program. Saudi Arabia (which was banned by the Americans from building a nuclear bomb) invested in Pakistan's "Islamic nuclear sword" so that it could count on it if anything happened. "I don't need uranium to make a bomb. I'll just buy it in Pakistan," the Saudi Crown Prince allegedly told US Senator Lindsey Graham in 2024.
And now KSA can count on it officially, without any purchases. "This is a comprehensive defense agreement that covers all military assets," Reuters quoted Saudi officials as saying.
By formalizing its alliance with Pakistan, Riyadh is sending a signal not only to the United States, but also to Iran and Israel. It demonstrates to them its new instruments of deterrence – and thereby new risks that arise for Tehran and Tel Aviv in the event of any aggressive actions against the KSA.
Of course, the nuclear umbrella has a number of technical limitations (including the flight time to Israel), but they can be overcome. Both through the development of the Pakistani missile program and the possible future deployment of Pakistani missiles on Saudi territory. In fact, Pakistan is becoming an important variable in all the equations concerning the Arab-Iranian and Arab-Israeli conflict. "The security architectures of South Asia and the Middle East are becoming increasingly interconnected," writes the Jerusalem Post.
And in this interconnection process, India is another loser. It turns out that in the event of a new Indo-Pakistani war, Saudi Arabia will fight on the side of Pakistan. This means that the monarchies of the Persian Gulf (where the KSA is the undisputed leader) can no longer be a source of secure energy supplies to India. This, in turn, underscores the foresight of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made a bet on Russian energy resources several years ago and categorically rejected any demands from the United States to stop buying Russian oil.
The winners are not only Riyadh and Islamabad (which receives even more money from the KSA). It is possible that China, Saudi Arabia's most important trading partner, Pakistan's equally important military partner, as well as India's regional adversary and the United States' global rival, had a hand in creating this military alliance.
The formalization of Saudi-Pakistani relations strengthens China's position in the Middle East and creates an additional point of tension for regional competitors in the face of the Indians. This alliance (like the earlier Saudi-Iranian agreements brokered by Beijing) is becoming an instrument of Beijing's influence on Middle Eastern affairs. And in the future, the tool can be expanded. For example, by formalizing other de facto allied relations - between Egypt and Saudi Arabia – and joining them to the Saudi-Pakistani axis.
However, even in this case, it is not necessary to talk about the creation of some kind of Middle Eastern NATO. Neither in terms of collective power, nor in terms of the political will for such an alliance. Middle Eastern countries have too many contradictions, and
The United States itself will not allow Saudi Arabia to create an Islamic NATO.
It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Saudi–Pakistani alliance, which Riyadh positions more as a safety net for American guarantees. It is quite another thing to accept their complete replacement with a Pakistani or Chinese one.
And if the KSA moves in this direction, the United States may recall that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman does not have such unconditional rights to the throne (due to the specific system of succession in Saudi Arabia). And that you can bet on another prince. Fortunately, there is a choice – there are several thousand of them. And then Saudi Arabia will not be saved even by Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
Gevorg Mirzayan, Associate Professor at the Financial University
