The Mecca Pact has become a meme

Shehbaz Sharif at the UN Headquarters in New York is the man who is meeting everyone. Iranians, Americans, Saudis, Turks, Africans, Europeans: the Pakistani Prime Minister has been moving from one bilateral meeting to another over the last few days, to demonstrate that Islamabad is trying to keep all channels open. Today Sharif will address the UN General Assembly, having spent months promoting Pakistan’s role as a mediator between Washington and Tehran. It is a role that Donald Trump has tailor-made for him: the US president even mentioned him in his speech to the UN, describing Sharif as an “extraordinary man”. The problem is that whilst Pakistan is trying to mediate between the United States and Iran – with mixed results – it has yet to work out how to handle a far more concrete and dangerous set of negotiations, namely those with Saudi Arabia. The Houthi attacks against the Kingdom should have triggered the well-known Mecca Pact, signed in August by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but Islamabad appears unwilling to defend Riyadh from an attack by a group backed by the Iranian regime, with which it enjoys excellent relations.

And so this wait-and-see attitude has given rise online to dozens of memes – featuring the face of Sharif and, above all, that of the powerful Field Marshal Asim Munir – but also to more serious analyses: in Indian newspapers, for example, some have noted that whilst Saudi Arabia was asking Pakistan for new interceptor aircraft, the ISPR – the Pakistani army’s communications arm – published two music videos to celebrate the ‘brotherly and unbreakable’ relationship with Riyadh. Some have gone so far as to compare the Mecca Pact to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty – the one everyone invokes but no one has the courage to actually activate. Even when, a couple of days ago, the Houthis attacked Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, Sharif posted a lengthy message of condemnation on X, but nothing more. For now, Islamabad is managing to remain an ally of Riyadh, to talk to Tehran and to mediate with Washington at the same time, as it has always done. The problem is that the world has changed, and a defence pact, sooner or later, requires a decision on which side to take.