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It was September 2019. Ten drones fired by the Houthis in Yemen struck and damaged two oil installations in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, a major U.S. ally, was alarmed, not only by the failure of the U.S. to protect it, but by America’s lack of response. For perhaps the first time, Saudi Arabia began to seriously doubt the reliability of the U.S. security umbrella, a doubt that had been awakened by the U.S. signing of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia’s regional Iranian ally. Those fears only grew when President Joe Biden pulled out of Afghanistan.
When the U.S. dropped its heaviest bombs on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities after having promised a security window during negotiations, fears about America’s increasing untrustworthiness began to fester. But it was the inability, or unwillingness, of the largest U.S. military base in the region, stationed on Qatari soil, to protect that crucial U.S. ally from being bombed that sent shock waves through the region.
The result of these increasing doubts about the wisdom of relying solely on the U.S. as a security partner is now being seen in the form of increasing bilateral regional security partnerships and, potentially far more importantly, momentum toward a regional security architecture.
The first significant, and unexpected, shift came from the region’s two leading rivals: Saudi Arabia and Iran. A cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been the maintenance of a coalition against Iran. The foundation of that policy was the permanent enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
But in March 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran undermined that foundation by thawing relations and signing a Chinese-brokered agreement to reestablish diplomatic ties. That healing of relations between rivals in the region, it turned out, was just the beginning.
Like Saudi Arabia, Egypt’s relations with Iran were very bad. Iran broke relations with Egypt in 1979, and, since then, Iran has seen Egypt as the region’s great betrayer, and Egypt has seen Iran as the region’s greatest threat.
But this summer, events encouraged all of that to change. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi travelled to Cairo to meet his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, and Egypt’s President El-Sisi. Abdelatty said that there is now “a mutual desire to develop our relations.” And the meeting went well. Araghchi posted, “After many years, diplomacy between Iran and Egypt has entered a new phase. The level of political interaction and cooperation, and more importantly, the level of trust and confidence in relations between the two countries, is unprecedented.” The two nations signed an agreement “to launch periodic consultations at the sub-ministerial level to address aspects of bilateral cooperation.”
But Iran was not Egypt’s only rival in the region. Nor was it the only rival Egypt was improving relations with. Egypt’s relations with Turkey fell apart in 2013 when Mohammed Morsi was ousted as president of Egypt. Turkey supported Morsi and opposed the coup that ushered Sisi into power.
But in 2023, Egypt and Turkey restored ambassadors to each other’s countries, and in 2024, Sisi and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited each other’s countries for the first time in 12 years. The Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says that relations between the two countries are at their “best levels in modern history.” And in September, Egypt and Turkey midwifed bilateral military relations when they held their first joint naval drills in thirteen years.
And while Egypt was restoring ties with Iran and Turkey, Saudi Arabia was diversifying its U.S.-dominated security portfolio by signing a security alliance with Pakistan. The Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement states “that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.”
But as important as these bilateral moves may be, they may not be as important as the newborn momentum toward a comprehensive regional security architecture that would encompass all the Muslim majority nations of the region. The leading military powers in the Muslim world have all recently signaled an interest in a Muslim security umbrella.
Turkey has called for the establishment of a security pact, under its leadership, that would include all the countries of the region, including military giants Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Pointing out that lack of trust and coordination between Muslim states has allowed instability and external interference, Turkey’s Fidan has urged a regional security pact that would formalize trust and coordination and reduce vulnerability to outside attack by healing from the inside out.
The pact would prevent external powers from exploiting internal divisions and commit each to ensure the territorial integrity, sovereignty and security of regional countries. It would also create “a coordinated response mechanism to external threats.”
Fidan said that “we need a regional stability pact” whose “main goal is to establish absolute trust among the countries in the region.” That trust would “prevent external interventions and ‘terrorist’ exploitation of mistrust.” The “common security vision” would also prevent terrorist groups from becoming established in the countries of the region.
Turkey is not the only country with a pan-Muslim security alliance on its radar. In September, Sisi told the delegates of the Emergency Arab-Islamic Summit in Qatar that “it has become imperative for us to establish an Arab-Islamic mechanism for coordination and cooperation to enable us all to confront the major security, political, and economic challenges surrounding us.” Making it clear that he envisioned a pan-Islamic security agreement, Sisi said that it must be clearly seen that “the geography of any Arab country extends from the Ocean to the Gulf and its umbrella is wide enough for all Islamic and peace-loving countries.”
Like Turkey, Egypt sees itself as leading the alliance. Egypt is offering to contribute 20,000 troops and to place an Egyptian general in command of the force.
And Pakistan, one of the largest militaries in the Muslim world and its only nuclear power, has seconded Egypt’s call. Pakistan has called for the adoption of “effective deterrent and offensive measures” that are “synchronized.” Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif says that it is time to “form an Islamic NATO.”
The Muslim states will face many challenges, not least is the military and economic might of the United States and their dependence on them. But the faith that once led them to place all of their security needs solely with the U.S. is over. The countries of the region have begun to diversify their security relations, to turn to each other for bilateral security agreements, and, perhaps most challengingly and significantly, to reawaken the idea of a pan-Islamic security alliance.