Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact in Mecca on Friday, pledging that an armed attack on any one of the three nations would be treated as an attack on all of them — a striking show of regional alignment as the war between the United States, Israel and Iran grinds into its sixth month with no clear end in sight.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed by Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who was accompanied by his army chief, Gen. Asim Munir. It builds on a bilateral Saudi-Pakistan defense agreement signed in September 2025, extending its mutual-defense language to include Turkey. A Turkish official described the pact as "defensive in nature" and "not directed against any specific actor," adding that it remains open to other regional states that wish to join.
A war with no exit
The alignment comes as the 2026 Iran war stretches past five months. The conflict began on Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched a joint air campaign — dubbed Operation Epic Fury — that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. A ceasefire memorandum signed June 17 later collapsed, and fighting has continued since.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz for most of that time, laying mines, boarding commercial vessels and firing on tankers passing through the waterway, which normally carries roughly 100 vessel transits a day. On some recent days, only six ships have cleared the strait. A Saudi-flagged tanker was struck off Yanbu this week — the eighth vessel hit since the blockade began, according to intelligence trackers — while the LNG carrier Gaslog Shanghai and the bulk carrier Minoan Pioneer were also recently attacked or reported missing near Oman. U.S. Central Command has responded by redirecting 48 commercial vessels and boarding or disabling several others in an enforcement posture aimed at keeping some traffic moving.
Washington's depleted stockpiles
The pact also lands amid mounting evidence that the U.S. military has burned through much of its precision-missile inventory sustaining the war. A Center for Strategic and International Studies report published July 27 found that Patriot interceptor stocks have fallen from roughly 2,330 before the war to between 759 and 827 — a drop of about 65% — while THAAD interceptors have fallen from 452 to somewhere between 234 and 278. Full restocking to pre-war levels, the report concluded, is unlikely before 2029.
President Trump disputed the severity of the shortage in a Truth Social post Thursday, writing: "The U.S. has massive amounts of 'munitions,' especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed." He also vowed that the "leakers" behind the reporting "are being hunted down" and would face "long-term jail sentences." The Washington Post reported that Trump confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the matter at Camp David around Aug. 5, though Hegseth has publicly dismissed the reporting as fabricated.
We don't have that many left, and there are no good substitutes.
Retired Marine Col. Mark Cancian, CSIS
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell pushed back on the CSIS findings, saying "America's military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President's choosing." On Friday, the Department of War revoked the security clearance of former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall over an unauthorized disclosure to the Wall Street Journal about Air Force One capabilities — part of a broader crackdown following the munitions reports.
Diplomatically, Iran and Oman are reportedly nearing a framework for a temporary safe shipping corridor through the strait, though Iran's Foreign Ministry has denied any direct talks with Washington even as Trump suggested this week that a deal could close within days. A senior Iranian official dismissed the new Mecca pact outright: "A paper agreement with Turkey and Pakistan will not bring them security, just as decades of one-sided dependence on the Americans failed to do so."
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is reportedly bracing for a coordinated assault by Iran-aligned militias operating out of Iraq and Yemen, and Brent crude has risen on multiple days this week — including one single-day jump of 2.7% — as traders price in continued disruption to Gulf shipping lanes. With no confirmed end date to the fighting, the Oman-brokered corridor talks remain the most concrete diplomatic track on the table, even as Gulf and South Asian powers hedge with new security arrangements of their own.
