The Middle East After Mecca Agreement: More Dangerous Multipolar Region 

According to the Realist School literature, countering balance an aggressive polar in a multipolar system would stop this polar and keep the system’s balance of power. Mecca agreement, as a counter-balance move by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, should stop Israel or/and Iran from pursuing regional hegemony, and restore balance and peace to the region. I argue that the rules of the balance-of-power theory do not apply to the Middle East as they did in Europe for a long time.

Over almost three centuries, the UK succeeded in sustaining European multipolarity through shifting its alliances to counterbalance any aggressive power in the region. The British cleverness did not save this system from a destructive end in WWI and WWII.

Although the Middle East as a multipolar region has been going through a similar experience to the European one, it has two different structural features changing the whole dynamics and making the region more flammable. The first difference is missing a polar that can hold the balance as the U.K. in Europe, and the second one is having an external superpower, “the United States,” that aligns with a specific power in the system,“Israel”. In this essay, I examine how these differences left the region more dangerous, where most powers’ options contribute to escalation, not counterbalancing. 

The Delayed Step of Counterbalancing

One of the direct consequences of October 7 was the reshaping of the regional balance of power, as the Israeli Government changed its definition of deterrence to start a regional open war against all its enemies. According to the realist school, if a power in a multipolar system such as the Middle East crosses the lines of the existing balance of power,such as what Israel did in Lebanon and Syria, the other polars align together to counterbalance the new imbalances in the system.

The Arab and regional players did not take this step for almost three years. Different reasons caused this delay, such as the permanent American support for Israel, which curbed Arab states and Turkey from forming or joining any bloc counterbalancing Israel. This situation changed after the second American-Israeli war against Iran in 2026, which granted Iran an opportunity to achieve a strategic gain by controlling the Hormuz Straight. Now, the regional system has two main polars,“Israel and Iran,” challenging the existing balance of power and seeking what they define as their safety, while others define as hegemony.

Another reason for the delay of the Mecca agreement was the lack of consensus among polars on threat prioritization. While Egypt and Turkey were concerned about the Israeli moves since October 7, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States were worried about the Iranian regional activities. The absence of a balance holder (UK) that unifies the other polars and defines threat priorities has left the region fragmented until now, and willconstrain the future of the Mecca agreement. Initially, the agreement left Egypt behind with several questions about the adversaries of this bloc.

The Asianization of the Middle East

The Asianization concept is usually used to describe the growing impact of Asian peoples in Western societies from a positive aspect. Here, I use it from strategic and security aspects.Mecca agreement turned the long history of alliance between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia into a trilateral joint defense agreement. It will bring other polar (India) with its agenda to the Middle East.

India started to engage more actively in the Middle East after October 7 by offering Israel a cheap labor force and aligning with Israel and the UAE on different levels. After the Mecca agreement, it should not surprise us the emergence of any regional security arrangement integrating India, especially after the 2025 short military confrontation against Pakistan. In other words, the Pakistani-Indian conflict will be present in the Middle East to complicate a region that has enough challenges and complications.

The Asianization of the Middle East also redraws the region’s geography to be centralized around the Gulf area, sending central states such as Egypt to the periphery, and shifting the regional agenda to focus more on energy security and trade issues than strategic questions such as the Palestinian issue. 

Regionalism and Internationalism

Mecca agreement is a clear indicator that regional polars are willing to lead any security regional arrangement. Despite this fact, the agreement could not be a regional arrangement against international intervention, especially since these three polars (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan) are close allies of the US. The two American wars against Iran in 2025 and 2026exposed the Gulf states’ security to unprecedented threats. While the Gulf leaders lost trust in the American will and capacity to protect their countries, they have limited options; hence, they consolidated their relations with the US and purchased more American weapons. In parallel, Saudi Arabia created another track for regional security arrangements with other American allies.

Mecca agreement was supposed to be a move to restore regional calm, but the absence of the balance holder caused a lack of consensus among the regional polars about the threats’ priorities. The US approach also contributed to the destabilization of the region by following the Israeli agenda in Iran twice with clear calculations about the exit from these wars.Israel will count on this support to challenge the new bloc emerging from the Mecca agreement. In other words, the Mecca agreement should be good news for the region, but structural features turn it into an escalation move.