The Diplomatic Insight Weekly

World changes within seconds; And it's been a week!

Hello Reader

Independence Day in Pakistan never changes its costume: blaring green-and-white horns, flags, lit skyscrapers, fireworks, and an airshow half the country watches live and the other half on TV.

This year, though, the celebration had a plus-one.

Turns out we weren't just marking 79 years of independence, we picked up a defense pact along the way.

Here's what actually happened (and who didn't make the cut) 👇

_This 'Azaadi' Came With a Pact_

Last night was the night of fireworks in Islamabad. The azaadi celebration landed just the way it does (Happy Independence from us too!) and while you sip your holiday tea/coffee, my insta feed was filled with fireworks this Monday morning and it took me some time to figure out the early celebration.

Those of you who happened to be around the new city attraction (New Blue Area, of course!) on Sunday night know what I am talking about.

The popular sentiment appeal in Pakistan stepped up from the-only-Muslim-nuclear-power to a bloc-of-the-most-powerful-Muslim-countries. The fireworks captured the moment.

A long time popular aspiration is now a reality, and the architects of the “Makkah Agreement” have left the doors open. The more the merrier!

Something was cooking since the “Regional Four” started meeting regularly. These foreign minister-level consultations, emerging around the same time as the earliest of US-Iran negotiations since Feb. 28, did not look like something on their own, initially.

But they came out stronger (minus 1) on August 7. When did “the one” get dropped? A timeline, we certainly don’t have but…

Will Egypt join soon? Probably, not so soon! A direct neighbor to Israel, a signatory of a defense treaty with Abu Dhabi, word goes Cairo’s reluctance met Saudi doubts and the agreement proceeded without “the one.”

Hoping to maintain the status quo and coupled in thought with the old security framework, Egypt will take a back seat for now. But the world ahead belongs to…

Independent Security frameworks: Cairo was not as bold as Riyadh in creating alternatives away from the United States. First the bilateral defense agreement with Pakistan and now the Makkah Pact, the Kingdom’s massive oil revenues and forward strategic thinking gave it an opening to distance itself from an ever-present join-the-Abraham-Accords condition.

1.4 million military personnel
3400 aircraft
6000 tanks
340 naval assets

These are the combined capabilities of Pakistan, Turkiye, and Saudi Arabia and…

A solid deterrent that Ankara sought against Israel. Second largest NATO army itself, the cracks in the transatlantic order pushed Turkiye to prepare ahead, and among its own.

Are more Gulf countries coming in? Perhaps not as openly as the founding members of this security and defense arrangement. But more likely and more comfortably through bilateral agreements. Take Kuwait, for example.

Pakistan, in that case, becomes a cushion and a common point of contact; a magnet which will make the Makkah Pact expand, one country at a time.

~~_...._...._...._...._...._...._~~

Nuzhat Rana

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