Two straits, one pact: what Makkah can and cannot protect

Two months. That’s how long the Makkah pact has existed, and already it’s being asked to do the thing pacts are least ready for in their early days: handle a real war.

On Sunday, Yemen’s internationally recognised government said it was launching a campaign to retake all Houthi-held territory. The Houthis claimed missile and drone strikes on Aramco sites in Riyadh and Khurais within hours. The pact’s strategic political and defence committee was already due to meet in Riyadh on 5 October, with Türkiye’s foreign and defence ministers flying in. Nobody planned that timing, but it couldn’t be sharper. The ministers aren’t just asking whether the alliance can deter an attack. They need to agree where their response ends.

Same waters, different traffic

I’d avoid calling Hormuz “closed” these days, because the numbers don’t support it. Kpler data reported by CNBC put combined crude and refined-product flows at 14.2 million barrels a day, roughly 80 per cent of the pre-war level. Crude on its own is back near normal. Still, a good week of tanker data doesn’t make the strait safe, and anyone who has watched insurers react to a single drone strike knows how fast confidence can leave.

Saudi Arabia’s second outlet is working again too. Riyadh restarted the East-West pipeline and resumed loadings at Yanbu, though volumes sit below what they were before the attacks. Here geography helps a little. Oil going north from Yanbu to Suez never comes near Bab al-Mandab. Oil going south to Asian buyers has to. And that southern route has taken a beating: the same report shows Bab al-Mandab flows more than halving between August and September, which pushed more Saudi crude back through Hormuz. The Houthis, meanwhile, now hold virtually the whole Red Sea coastline of Yemen. Owning a coastline doesn’t mean they decide which ships get through, but shipowners aren’t going to wait to find out.

So the real danger is uncertainty. A tanker may well sail. Whether its owner, insurer and buyer believe the next one will is a different matter, and a defence pact ought to be judged partly on whether it calms that doubt.

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A promise needs machinery

The 7 August text says an attack on any one of the three counts as an attack on all. That’s a heavy political promise. It isn’t a working military system yet, and pretending otherwise helps no one.

The sceptics have a case. The Arab Center Washington DC argues the agreement is unlikely to produce a real military response if an attack happens, and Middle East Eye points out that Pakistan and Türkiye sat on the sidelines when the Houthis swept down the Red Sea last month. I think that criticism lands harder than supporters admit. Where I part ways with it is the yardstick. Even NATO’s Article 5 doesn’t force every ally to react identically. Each member decides what help it thinks necessary. Leaving room for judgment doesn’t make a guarantee worthless.

What I’d want answered is more mundane. Who says an attack has happened? Who asks for help? Who signs off on deployments? Which places and threats are covered? And when Ankara, Islamabad and Riyadh disagree, who breaks the tie before events do it for them?

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has said the pact will need at least a year to become fully operational. Meaning the three are fighting the fire while still putting the hoses together. Some things shouldn’t wait, though: early warning, air defence, protecting infrastructure, a reliable line between capitals in a crisis. And they should tell their own publics, and everyone else, what they’re actually trying to achieve.

Where defence starts looking like offence

Pakistan’s army has condemned the Houthi attacks and pledged to the security of Islam’s holy sites. Saudi Arabia says the Houthis have gone after both holy cities, and Dar has called a strike on a power plant in Madinah “not acceptable”.

Words are one thing. Cargo planes are another. Reuters, citing a Pakistani government official, reported that Islamabad sent air-defence systems, light artillery, drones and anti-drone equipment to Aden, with Pakistani advisers working beside Saudi officers to support Yemeni troops. I’m leaning on Middle East Eye’s summary of that report, and it’s worth remembering these are attributed claims, not an official list of everything Pakistan has done. Even so, it’s getting hard to say Pakistan’s role ends at the Saudi border.

Stopping a missile over a Saudi city and helping another army fight inside Yemen are two different jobs. On the ground they overlap. Politically, they cost very different things. The allies should say where one stops and the other starts, before the fighting says it for them.

And please, nobody should reach for the nuclear card to avoid this conversation. The published statement commits the three to collective defence. It says nothing about a nuclear guarantee.

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A door worth trying

Dar also told reporters Iran had suggested engaging the Houthis politically, instead of through “kinetic action”, calling it “brainstorming between two foreign ministers” rather than a written offer. He said Tehran had distanced itself from the Houthis, and that he’d briefed Iranian officials on how Pakistan would honour the pact.

I wouldn’t call that a breakthrough. I’d call it worth a try. Pakistan can back Saudi security and still keep talking to Tehran, but only if both capitals believe what Islamabad tells them. And Iran saying it wants calm isn’t the same as Iran being able to deliver the Houthis. A deal has to bind whoever is actually launching the missiles, and someone must be able to check that they’ve stopped.

What should Islamabad ask for? A clearly defined defensive mission. Open political approval before anything wider. And a diplomatic track that doesn’t stop when the shooting gets louder.

Protection needs an exit

Yemen’s new offensive makes the gap between goals hard to ignore. Keeping shipping safe, winning back territory and defeating a movement dug in across a whole country are ambitions of very different size, and they shouldn’t blur together as the speeches get bigger.

A realistic diplomatic package would tie an end to cross-border attacks and threats to shipping to mutual de-escalation, humanitarian access and fresh Yemeni political talks. Getting the order right will be miserable. Dodging it would be worse. The region’s older wounds, Palestine included, won’t heal soon. But sailors and ordinary Yemenis shouldn’t be made to wait for all of that before their safety is up for negotiation.

Makkah can help protect territory and infrastructure. It might even give its members the nerve to negotiate. I’d measure it by whether lives get safer and ships get through, not by how large the military response looks.

Can it defend Saudi Arabia and still leave a believable way out? That’s the whole test. Time bought by force is only worth having if somebody uses it to build the exit.

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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.