Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the unmaking of an American order

For nearly a century, the United States projected itself as the indispensable architect of West Asia’s political and security order. From oil protection to weapons deals, from military interventions to normalization projects, Washington ruled by a mix of coercion and consent. Today that edifice is visibly cracking. The recent signing of a mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan has ripped open the fault lines.

This agreement — couched in the language of solidarity — has implications that reach far beyond Riyadh and Islamabad. It signals nothing less than a strategic rupture: Saudi Arabia is no longer content to rely on the United States as its sole security guarantor. Instead, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has tethered his kingdom’s defence calculus to nuclear-armed Pakistan, a country historically close to Riyadh but never bound so explicitly in mutual defence.

Washington’s miscalculation

The United States had gambled on the Abraham Accords as the cornerstone of a new Middle East. The logic was simple: normalize Arab ties with Israel, reduce Palestinian centrality, and secure American pre-eminence through economic integration. Gulf states were expected to prize U.S. security guarantees and Israeli technology above Arab solidarity or popular outrage.

That gamble has failed. The wars in Gaza, the relentless civilian suffering, and Washington’s unconditional support for Israel have stripped the Accords of legitimacy. By taking Arab consent for granted, Washington misjudged loyalties.

Riyadh’s pivot reveals the truth: Gulf leaders will not mortgage their survival to American arrogance. They may have flirted with normalization, but public opinion and regional realities proved costlier than U.S. promises.

A nuclear shadow

While the Saudi-Pakistan pact does not openly declare a “nuclear umbrella,” its implications are unmistakable. Pakistan is one of the few Muslim-majority nuclear states. The pact’s pledge — “an attack on one is an attack on both” — carries an unmistakable undertone. Even if never formalized, the symbolic deterrent is enough to force adversaries in Tel Aviv, Tehran, and Washington to rethink their calculations.

The United States, long the unchallenged external power in the Gulf, now faces a competitor it cannot easily pressure. A Pakistan-backed Saudi deterrent is not just theoretical: it has psychological weight, altering the geometry of regional defence.

Europe breaks ranks

For decades, Europe mirrored American policy on Israel. Today, that reflex is eroding. Brussels and several European capitals are openly considering punitive measures — trade reviews, arms restrictions, even diplomatic downgrades. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself admitted that Israel faces unprecedented isolation, a reality that his own belligerence has accelerated.

This marks a watershed

If even Europe — long America’s Atlantic twin — distances itself from Israeli excesses, then U.S. isolation is contagious. The pillars of American hegemony are not only military but reputational. Once that erodes, even allies recalibrate.

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Russia steps in

As Washington falters, Russia has presented itself as the alternative interlocutor — a power that deals in transactional clarity rather than moralizing doublespeak. For Gulf monarchies, Moscow’s approach feels refreshingly pragmatic. Vladimir Putin has shown he is both willing and able to project power in Syria and beyond. While Europeans may fantasize about a weak Russia, Gulf rulers see Moscow as useful ballast against American fickleness.

The result is a seesaw tilting against Washington. U.S. influence is bleeding, not because rivals are so strong, but because America is so weakened by its own contradictions — rich and poor at the same time, powerful yet politically hollow.

Netanyahu and Trump: The denialists

Both Netanyahu and Donald Trump wagered that doubling down on force and rhetoric would cement their legacies. They are now leaders walking into smoke — blinded by their own delusions, unable to see the ruins ahead. Their strategy rested on the illusion that interests always trump values. But international politics is not only about military assets; it is also about legitimacy, perception, and consent.

The cost of denial is steep. Israel’s generals acknowledge quietly that Hamas will not be crushed. What emerges from Gaza is not Israeli dominance but Israeli fragility — a society more isolated, an economy under strain, a polity fractured by internal dissent.

Qatar’s fury and Saudi’s ambition

Doha remains furious at Riyadh’s manoeuvrings, but the new reality is this: Saudi Arabia is the new architect of West Asia. It will build new combinations, hedge with diverse partners, and script an order unlike anything the region has known. Qatar, Turkey, Iran — each will compete for leverage, but none can ignore Riyadh’s centrality.

The Abraham Accords, meanwhile, limp on in name only. For the Gulf’s rulers, the costs of public outrage at Gaza exceed the benefits of overt normalization. A transactional relationship may endure, but its political legitimacy is broken.

The Palestinian hinge

If Palestine has redefined the future, it is because Palestinian suffering has become the hinge on which regional legitimacy now turns. The moral outrage has political consequences: it catalyses new alignments, forces reputational cost-calculations, and opens a space for actors outside the U.S. orbit to exercise leverage.

Saudi Arabia, having flirted with normalization, now appears determined to reclaim agency — to write its own rules rather than be written into someone else’s script. That is seismic.

An empire in slow decline

The U.S. is not vanishing overnight. Its military bases remain, its economic power persists, and its cultural influence lingers. But credibility is the true currency of empire. Washington’s credibility has been squandered by decades of militarism, blind loyalty to Israel, and neglect of justice in Palestine.

When Toynbee observed that empires collapse through betrayal of their own pretensions, he could not have foreseen Gaza or the Abraham Accords. Yet his observation fits: America’s betrayal is its refusal to align its rhetoric of democracy with its actions of complicity.

A new map

What comes next is messy and dangerous. There will be permutations and counter-permutations: downgrading of ties, shadow balancers, proxy escalation, and a retooling of defence pacts that mix conventional and nuclear ambiguity. The Abraham Accords may survive in name, but without a credible Palestinian settlement or U.S. ability to enforce outcomes, normalization will remain brittle at best.

Policy lesson for democracies and anti-imperialists alike: the era of unquestioned U.S. primacy in the Gulf is over. Empires rely on credibility; when credibility frays, clients look elsewhere. Saudi Arabia’s Pakistan pact is an unmistakable signal that old guarantees can be replaced by new, riskier architectures. Whether this produces more stability or greater instability depends on choices in Riyadh, Islamabad, Jerusalem, Tehran, Moscow, Brussels, and Washington.

One thing is clear: the map has been redrawn, and neither the Abraham Accords nor American arrogance will map the new terrain alone.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.