September 23, 2026 | WSJ Letter to the Editor
The Mecca Pact Has Become a Hollow Promise
If these excuses hold in the pact’s first crisis, they will hold in the next.
September 23, 2026 | WSJ Letter to the Editor
The Mecca Pact Has Become a Hollow Promise
If these excuses hold in the pact’s first crisis, they will hold in the next.
Excerpt
Your Sept. 19 editorial “The Saudis, the Houthis, and Israel” rightly argues that neither Pakistan nor Turkey will ride to Saudi Arabia’s rescue and that Riyadh’s best path forward lies in deeper cooperation with the U.S. and Israel.
If ever there were a moment for the Mecca pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan to prove its worth, it was the Houthi attack targeting Mecca, Islam’s holiest site and the pact’s namesake. Instead, Ankara and Islamabad offered little more than condemnation.
Ahmad Sharawi is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.