Saudi/Pakistan/Turkey Defense Deal Raises Nuclear TemperatureThe Mekkah Joint Agreement makes nuclear transparency in the Middle East critical and that means Israel and the U.S. have to be transparent about Israel's nuclear weapons program and capability.
The Mekkah Joint Defense agreement promises the signatories, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, that an attack on one is an attack on all. The Mekkah Joint Defense Agreement among Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, which frames an attack on one as an attack on all, warrants scrutiny through a nuclear-risk framework. It is a powerful agreement, one that gives Saudi Arabia and Turkey a nuclear weapons defense umbrella, provided by Pakistan, the only nation among them with nuclear weapons. It also raises deeply important questions about the nuclear future of South Asia and the Middle East. The questions are many: Does the Mekkah Joint Defense Agreement allow or require Pakistan to share its nuclear weapons capability if the three signatories agree it is crucial to their defense? How does the agreement impact the U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and the part of that deal that allows uranium enrichment on Saudi soil? Equally important and spectacularly dangerous is Israel’s nuclear weapons program, hidden from public view and international scrutiny. Isn’t it now critical that Israel’s nuclear capability be acknowledged, transparent and internationally inspected? Is Israel enriching its uranium on its soil? To what degree is it being enriched? What are the safeguards around its program and how much of that program is American financed? There is no reason to accept that Israel is any more responsible than any other state that possesses or produces nuclear weapons. Israel has shown its deep disrespect for international agencies that demand it be held to the same international standards as every state in the comity of nations. Israel refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty even as it is believed to possess a healthy arsenal of nuclear weapons. The widely respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says Israel has about 90 nuclear weapons. It is extraordinary that a country, an ally of the self-righteous West, which boasts ad nauseam of having some kind of value system, would possess a clandestine nuclear weapons program. To add salt to the wound Israel’s nuclear weapons program was financed by the United States, arguably the West’s most self-righteous nation. Makes one wonder who one can trust. The assumption of the self-righteous West will always be that countries like Pakistan, India, China, Russia or North Korea cannot be trusted. No doubt that assumption is correct. But there are none more untrustworthy than Israel and the United States, partners in crime to develop Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons program, while a knowing world looked the other way. Clearly nuclear transparency has and should have always been a global demand, even as it wasn’t, but the Mekkah Joint Agreement has made nuclear transparency critical. The devil is in the detail of any agreement, but with pretty much everything that involves the U.S. administration details are few and dizzyingly fluid. The Saudi Nuclear deal is only the most recent example of Trump’s fickle and often dangerous disrespect for agreements he signs. Nuclear security in our turbulent world is a serious issue, too serious I fear for this American administration, whose expertise in most everything is dangerously lacking. It is also an administration that cannot be relied upon to be an honest partner in anything. Ignoring the nuclear realities in South Asia and the Middle East, including owning up to Israel’s nuclear weapons capability, is not merely misguided—it is reckless and dangerously irresponsible. In South Asia, both hostile neighbors India and Pakistan possess sizeable nuclear arsenals. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI) in 2026 said India possessed 190 nuclear weapons, Pakistan 170 nuclear weapons and Israel 90 weapons. It is interesting to note that both Israel and India have increased their arsenal since 2024 when SIPRI put India’s nuclear weapons stockpile at 180 and Israel at 80. The nuclear weapons race it seems is on notably in regions that have experienced relentless wars, wars that often involve the United States. As defense agreements multiply—often negotiated in secrecy and described only in vague terms—across regions marked by hostility, mistrust, foreign interference, and nuclear weapons, the risks of miscalculation and escalation grow more severe. If India should attack Pakistan, are Saudi Arabia and Turkey obliged to enter the fray or if Pakistan attacks India is Israel, which has signed an $8 billion agreement with India likely, even if not obliged, to offer help to New Delhi? Could Pakistan conclude that Israel is helping India and as a result would Saudi Arabia and Turkey be obliged to attack Israel? Some affirmative answers may seem improbable, even absurd, but dismissing them would be reckless. The public knows too little about the many signed agreements, and there appear to be no disclosed guardrails to prevent such outcomes. To underestimate, ignore, or fail to confront these risks is indefensible. |