i was wrong about saudi arabia’s pact with pakistan
the pact was never about israel. it was about iran all along
A few months ago, I argued that the Saudi–Pakistan defense pact was really about Israel. ⬇️
That reading doesn’t hold up anymore.
What we’re seeing now makes something much clearer, that this pact was never about Israel. It was always about Iran. And more specifically, it was about a war Saudi Arabia fears it cannot fight on its own.
a war riyadh hoped others would fight for it
Saudi Arabia didn’t want to be stuck in a long regional war with Iran. Over the past few years, the kingdom has been trying to stabilize, not escalate. Vision 2030, foreign investment, tourism, megaprojects, none of that works in a region where missiles are flying over Riyadh.
They even tried diplomacy. In 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to restore relations in a deal brokered by China, reopening embassies and committing to non-interference after years of hostility. That alone tells you where Saudi thinking was: avoid this exact scenario if possible. But avoiding a war and wanting your main rival weakened aren’t the same thing.
There are reports that Mohammed bin Salman saw this conflict as a chance for the U.S. and Israel to weaken Iran, while Saudi Arabia stayed out of the main fighting and avoided paying the biggest price.
That contradiction is the point.
Riyadh didn’t want a prolonged war on its own territory. But it may have wanted Iran hit hard enough that the problem is solved by someone else. But now that scenario it didn’t want, is here.
Iran has been hitting bases and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia tied to U.S. interests. But if it can do that, it can obviously hit Saudi Arabia directly. Fighter jets, bases, infrastructure, government buildings. The vulnerability isn’t theoretical anymore.
But the even bigger fear in Riyadh isn’t just being attacked. It’s something worse. A war where the United States and Israel strike Iran, but don’t actually end the threat. A scenario where Washington pulls back, avoids regime change, and eventually disengages, leaving the region to absorb the consequences. In that scenario, Iran is wounded, angry, and still fully capable of targeting Gulf infrastructure, shipping routes, and economic lifelines. And Saudi Arabia and the GCC (and of course, Israel) wouldn’t have the same level of cover. They would be left to deal with it largely on their own. That’s the nightmare scenario.
Saudi Arabia’s economy still runs on oil, but it also runs on the perception of stability. Investors have to believe it’s a safe place to put money. The strategy now is to use that oil wealth to build something bigger. Under MBS, Saudi is leaning into a Dubai-style model, which means, attract foreign investment, grow tourism, and turn the country into a regional hub. In Arab countries, that’s the benchmark everyone is chasing. But that only works if the country is stable and that sense of stability doesn’t come only from inside Saudi Arabia. It relies heavily, arguably fundamentally, on U.S. security guarantees.
Saudi Arabia as a modern state has never really existed without backing from a superpower, first Britain and then the United States. If that guarantee weakens or disappears, the entire equation changes. It’s no longer just about markets or investment, it’s about whether the state can survive. Strip away that external protection, and what looks like strength starts to look a lot more fragile. Saudi Arabia can fund a war. It can influence a war. It can host a war. But it cannot sustain or fight one like this alone.
It has one of the most advanced air forces in the region, built with top-tier American equipment, deep funding, and long-standing partnerships. But a prolonged, ground-heavy confrontation with Iran is a completely different kind of war.
Saudi Arabia’s strength is in the air. Its weakness is on the ground. Structurally, the military has long relied on foreign contractors, advanced systems, and a smaller professional force instead of mass mobilization. But there’s also a cultural side to this. The Saudis of today are not the Saudis of 100 years ago, and definitely not the ones from 1,500 years ago. Decades of oil wealth have reshaped society, creating a system where many citizens are insulated from hardship, with the state providing jobs, benefits, and security. That doesn’t translate into a population ready for long, brutal wars that require endurance and sacrifice.
Iran is built differently. Its system is decentralized, hardened, and designed for long-term conflict. Its fighters, and its allied networks, are shaped by ideology and a culture that accepts heavy losses and keeps going. That difference shows up clearly in readiness for high-intensity war.
Even Saudi Arabia’s biggest advantage, its air force, has limits. Years of air campaigns in Yemen struggled to decisively defeat the Houthis, an opponent far less complex than Iran. And then there’s the vulnerability on the ground. Saudi Arabia does have hardened aircraft shelters, but they’re limited and not built for modern precision ballistic missiles. A direct hit can destroy them, and many high-value aircraft can’t be sheltered at all, they sit exposed. But if even U.S. and Israeli airpower hasn’t been able to quickly break Iran, it raises a simple question: what exactly could Saudi Arabia do on its own? The answer is uncomfortable, that’s not the kind of war its military is built to fight. And they know it.
So instead of trying to fix that weakness directly, they’ve done what they’ve always done. They’ve thrown money at the situation and outsourced it. That’s what the pact with Pakistan actually is.
Pakistan brings something Saudi Arabia doesn’t have: manpower, military depth and, crucially, a nuclear shadow. As Bob Woodward reports in his book War (2024), MBS told Senator Lindsey Graham: “I don’t need uranium to make a bomb. I will just buy one from Pakistan.” For Riyadh, that fills a gap. At least on paper.
But right now, Iran seems to be calling that bluff. The assumption in Riyadh is that Pakistan would ultimately step in if things escalated far enough. Iran appears to be betting the opposite, that Pakistan will keep refusing to intervene in any meaningful way, no matter how much pressure builds. And so far, Pakistan’s behavior lines up more with that second scenario than the first.
Because in reality, Pakistan is a much more complicated partner than it looks. Yes, it has one of the largest militaries in the world. Yes, it has long-standing ties with Saudi Arabia. Yes, it has historically deployed troops to the kingdom. But none of that means it will fight Iran. Pakistan doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It shares a border with Iran. It has its own internal security challenges. It’s balancing tensions with India and Afghanistan, ongoing instability in regions like Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and a fragile political and economic system.
Opening a serious front with Iran is a strategic gamble with consequences at home and that’s before you even get into public sentiment, because inside Pakistan, this wouldn’t just be seen as a clean geopolitical decision. There’s strong opposition to fighting Iran, and many people view it as a “brother” country or at least not an enemy worth going to war with. For a significant segment of the population, Iran is seen as standing up to the U.S. and Israel, while Saudi Arabia is viewed as too closely aligned with them.
This isn’t just abstract sentiment. Pakistan’s Shia population, roughly 10–15% of the country, or tens of millions of people, making it the second-largest Shia population in the world, is large enough to matter politically and socially, and has reacted strongly in moments of escalation involving Iran.
Iran has, over the years, built connections with Shia fighters from other countries, including Pakistanis who fought in Syria in groups like the Zainabiyoun Brigade. After Assad’s fall, many of them went back to Pakistan. This doesn’t mean Iran can just destabilize Pakistan, the state is still strong, and these groups are banned and watched closely. But it does mean there are people inside the country with real combat experience and past links to Iran. So any direct confrontation carries internal risks. Sectarian tensions could rise, protests could escalate, and smaller militant networks could re-emerge or reorganize under pressure.
There’s also a widespread belief that the Saudi pact is transactional. Pakistan’s economy has been under constant pressure for years, relying on IMF programs and repeated support from Saudi Arabia and the UAE just to stay afloat. Recently the UAE even demanded early repayment of billions in loans it had been rolling over for years, putting serious strain on Pakistan’s reserves. The timing wasn’t random, it came amid frustration that Pakistan stayed neutral, refused to support Gulf positions against Iran, and instead helped push for ceasefire talks that they didn’t actually want.
From Riyadh’s perspective, though, Pakistan still functions as a form of deterrence. The implicit message is supposed to be if Saudi Arabia is pushed into a direct confrontation with Iran, it has the option to pull Pakistan into it. That threat alone is meant to complicate Iran’s calculations because it introduces the risk of a broader war, one that stretches into South Asia. Iran wouldn’t just be fighting on their western side, it could face huge pressure on their eastern side, forcing it to divide attention and resources. Even if that scenario is unlikely, the possibility itself is part of what Saudi Arabia is trying to leverage.
at the top level, this relationship is simpler than it looks.
Gulf states don’t really deal with Pakistan as a whole. They deal directly with its military and especially the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), the military’s powerful intelligence arm that plays a central role in security, foreign policy, and behind-the-scenes decision-making, because that’s the only part of the country they trust to actually follow through on anything they want.
Civilian governments in Pakistan change all the time. Policies shift. Public opinion moves fast. But the military stays. It’s the real center of power, it’s the closest thing or it basically is Pakistan’s deep state. Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Chief of Defense Forces, holds far more real power than Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The military is the only institution that can consistently deliver.
We saw this during Imran Khan’s time in power. His foreign policy was more independent, and that created tension with Gulf leaders. Support was more cautious. After he was removed, things warmed up again pretty quickly. So when Saudi Arabia thinks about this pact, it’s not really thinking about Pakistan as a whole. It’s thinking about the generals. This creates a gap. The leadership is aligned, but a lot of the public isn’t and this gap will matter when things get serious, because decisions made at the top don’t just stay there, they hit the street.
Things can get unstable in Pakistan. Protests around Imran Khan have repeatedly escalated quickly and right now, there’s a real reason for that pressure to keep building. His health has become a serious issue as he’s been dealing with a major eye condition that has already left him with severe vision loss in one eye. His party has been warning that without proper treatment, it could become permanent, while his family and lawyers have been raising concerns about delays in care and limited access to doctors.
Imran Khan’s popularity hasn’t collapsed, in many ways it’s held or even strengthened. Despite being jailed and restricted, Imran Khan still commands a large, loyal base, especially among younger voters and urban populations. That’s why every update about his condition immediately turns political.
At the same time, his party, PTI, is in a strange position. It’s still one of the most popular political forces in the country and remains a central opposition bloc, but its leadership is fragmented, under pressure, and often restricted. Many of its senior figures have faced arrests, legal cases, or limitations on organizing, which has slowed momentum even when public support is clearly there.
So you have this mix: a leader in jail whose health is deteriorating, a base that’s still angry and mobilizable, and a party that can’t fully operate the way it used to. That doesn’t create stability, it creates uncertainty that can explode at any moment.
This all matters for one reason, it tells you Pakistan is not operating from a calm, controlled position. It’s under external pressure from Gulf partners who assume they’ve effectively bought influence and expect Pakistan to step up if things escalate. But if Pakistan were to step into a war with Iran, that internal uncertainty wouldn’t stay contained. Every time this kind of pressure has built up before, they’ve managed to control it, but a war with Iran could be the moment that finally breaks that pattern. This wouldn’t just be a foreign policy decision happening far away. It would hit inside the country through protests, political backlash, and potentially unrest.
Saudi Arabia’s entire strategy assumes Pakistan is a reliable, mostly united and stable, and it all could work if it were aimed at Israel, because public opinion, religion, and political pressure inside Pakistan would all push in the same direction. But this is different. This is Iran.
And in this case, Pakistan isn’t something Saudi Arabia can just use whenever it wants. The country has its own problems, its own public opinion, and its own limits. So instead of stepping in automatically, it has now decided to basically become unpredictable. It’s already dealing with real instability and that’s before even getting into the current conflict with Afghanistan and internal conflicts like the TTP insurgency and Baloch militancy.
Pakistan is not in a position right now to fight a war with a strong regional country like Iran for someone else, especially when Iran already has influence, connections, and ways to create pressure inside Pakistan itself.
And that makes the cost of fully aligning with Saudi Arabia much higher than it looks from Riyadh, because Saudi Arabia doesn’t mind sacrificing Pakistan to protect itself. And remember, Pakistan’s biggest long-term rival is still India, and tensions between them can escalate quickly. If Pakistan gets dragged into a draining war with Iran and starts losing manpower, resources, and starts taking hits to its infrastructure, along with potential triggering of unrest at home, this all creates an opening for India to step in. It doesn’t necessarily mean a full invasion, but pressure, interference, limited escalation, and other moves to take advantage of a weakened opponent.
That’s the kind of risk Pakistani leadership is definitely thinking about.
pakistan doesn’t actually want to be pulled into this war,
and you can see that in how they’ve been behaving. Instead of preparing for a confrontation with Iran, they’ve been trying to position themselves as a mediator, by passing messages, hosting talks, and trying to slow things down rather than escalate them.
Just within the last day, those efforts actually produced a short pause: a roughly 14-day ceasefire. This came after Trump had escalated things hard with at one point even threatening civilizational death (basically genocide), before suddenly pulling back and agreeing to suspend strikes after talks with Pakistan’s leadership.
But the situation didn’t stabilize. Almost immediately, there were disagreements over what the ceasefire actually covered, especially Lebanon. Israel continued heavy strikes there, which Iran saw as a violation of the deal, and things started unraveling fast. So even though a ceasefire was announced, it already looks fragile and unstable and by the time this article is published, there’s a real chance it’s already broken.
For Pakistan’s leadership, this approach makes more sense. It keeps Pakistan relevant and avoids getting dragged into a war it doesn’t want. It puts Pakistan in the position of a mediator and a mediator can’t take sides. It might risk relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but those aren’t the most important relationships right now. The real balance Pakistan is trying to manage is between Iran and the United States. But that balancing act is fragile.
If diplomacy collapses, Pakistan could still get pulled from both sides, seen by Iran as too close to Washington, while also facing pressure from Saudi Arabia (and also maybe even Washington) to follow through on the pact. So instead of choosing a side outright, Pakistan is trying to stay in the middle.
And that tells you everything you need to know: the pact might exist on paper, but actually activating it is a completely different story.
There’s also another assumption built into Saudi strategy that doesn’t hold up. The idea of a unified Sunni bloc.
On paper, it makes sense. Saudi Arabia sees itself as a central player in the Sunni world, with the financial and political weight to bring others along. However in reality, that bloc doesn’t really exist. Turkey and the UAE has their own ambitions. Qatar has its own policies. Egypt and Pakistan takes Saudi support but don’t rush into its wars. Muslim countries across Asia and Africa prioritize their own stability over regional alignment.
Part of the reason is simple, Saudi Arabia hasn’t really united the Sunni world in any way. If anything, a lot of its actions over the past decade have split it further. The idea seemed to be that dividing the region would make it easier to control and lead, but that never fully worked. And now those same divisions are limiting how much support Riyadh can actually count on.
There’s also a gap between governments and the public. If you look at social media, at posts from users from Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Turkey, Somalia, Algeria etc and even among Muslims living in the diaspora, in western countries, you’ll see many Sunnis leaning toward Iran over Saudi Arabia. Because it’s not really about sects. Most Sunnis still see Shias as Muslims, even if they disagree with them. But in stricter circles, like those influenced by Wahhabi thinking, that’s not always the case.
Wahhabism comes from the Najd region of Saudi Arabia in the 1700s, when Muhammad ibn Abd al‑Wahhab formed an alliance with the House of Saud. At its core, this interpretation puts a heavy focus on strict monotheism (tawhid). Practices like visiting shrines, asking saints or imams for help, or certain mourning rituals are seen as crossing that line. They’re labeled as shirk, meaning associating partners with God. Because of that, they don’t see Shias as just mistaken. They see them as outside Islam altogether, as kuffar (non‑believers).
Saudi leadership has acknowledged how this ideology spread beyond its borders. In a 2018 interview, Mohammed bin Salman said Saudi Arabia had promoted this form of Islam globally during the Cold War at the request of Western allies, as part of a broader effort to counter rival ideological movements. That admission shows this wasn’t just a purely organic religious spread, it was also tied to geopolitical strategy.
But there is a split because most Sunnis still see Iran as a Muslim country, one that’s pushing back against the U.S., Israel, Zionism, and imperialism. But within that stricter Wahhabi-influenced framework, Iran is often seen as a threat to Sunni Islam itself. Some believe Iran is trying to expand its influence across Sunni countries or even force conversion. Others go further, claiming Iran is secretly aligned with the U.S. or Israel to weaken Sunnis from within.
But this is where it starts to look contradictory. The same Gulf states promoting this view are the ones hosting American military bases, working closely with Washington, and in some cases coordinating with Israel. They were also aligned with the U.S. during major regional interventions like Iraq and Syria.
In Islamic tradition, Jews and Christians are considered “People of the Book,” meaning they’re recognized as monotheists even if they’re not Muslim. So from that perspective, working with them politically isn’t seen as crossing a red line. That reasoning is often used to justify close alignment with the U.S. and, increasingly, coordination with Israel, while taking a much harder line against Shia Iran.
But outside the Gulf, a lot of people don’t see it that way. To them, Saudi Arabia talks a lot about leadership and independence, but its actions keep lining up with U.S. interests. Iran’s image comes from a very different place. It’s been under heavy sanctions for years, constantly pressured and destabilized from the outside (and inside), and its people have paid the price, but the state hasn’t folded. It’s still standing and still pushing back. That contrast is what shapes perception.
And that difference becomes even clearer when you look at recent years. Saudi Arabia was moving toward normalization with Israel while the Palestinian issue stayed unresolved and sidelined, something that only really stalled or stopped after Yahya Sinwar’s launching of Operation Aqsa Flood. In a 2019 speech, Yahya Sinwar openly said that without Iran’s support, Hamas would not have developed its military capabilities, while accusing Arab governments of abandoning them in critical moments.
For a lot of people, not just Shias, but Sunnis too, that is all the evidence needed. Iran is seen as a country that’s been squeezed economically and still didn’t give in, and still provides tangible support to its allies. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is often seen as having grown wealthy under U.S. protection while becoming more removed from the struggles of the wider Muslim world.
That doesn’t mean people agree with everything Iran does. But it does shape how it’s perceived and why, in many places, it’s seen with a level of respect that Saudi Arabia doesn’t always get. Leadership isn’t just about money or status, it’s about credibility. In a lot of places, Saudi Arabia’s credibility is questioned.
So while governments can still cooperate politically or economically when convenient, the idea of a unified Sunni front against Iran is much harder to actually turn into reality.
There’s also a battle over narrative. Saudi Arabia frames the conflict around stability and security. Iran frames itself as resistance. When the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) first began preaching in Makkah, he and his followers faced rejection, pressure, and persecution, but they didn’t back down or compromise the core message. That early period is often remembered as a moment of resistance against power, wealth, and social pressure.
Today, you could kind of see that same contrast playing out in a modern way. Saudi Arabia can be seen as prioritizing stability, wealth, and alignment with global powers, while Iran can be seen as standing up to pressure and refusing to fold, and as a defender of ordinary Muslims who feel they’ve been pushed around for decades by outside powers, from European empires to modern U.S.-backed regional systems. This conflict is basically about who gets to define what resistance, leadership, and even defending Islam actually means. That message lands in some places. In others, people are skeptical. It won’t decide the war by itself. But it shapes who lines up with who, and how strong those alliances really are.
This narrative clash isn’t new. It’s been building for years. In 2017, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described Saudi Arabia as a “milking cow” for the United States, arguing that Washington extracts its wealth and would eventually discard it once it’s no longer useful. The remark reflected a broader Iranian view of the Gulf monarchies as strategically dependent on Western power. A year later, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responded with equally stark language, warning that Iran’s leadership was pursuing a regional project “very much like Hitler,” and stating that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would follow “as soon as possible.” Those exchanges captured how both sides see each other: not as normal rivals, but as systemic threats, one seen as dependent on outside power, the other as trying to reshape the region.
At the core, their goals clash in a deeper way. Saudi Arabia wants Iran removed as a threat to the Gulf order. Iran, on the other hand, wants the United States pushed out of the region entirely. But that creates a contradiction: if the U.S. leaves, Iran’s main enemy disappears, but so does the security system Saudi Arabia depends on.
That means Iran removing the U.S. from the region doesn’t just weaken American influence, it also weakens Saudi Arabia’s position, because the kingdom relies heavily on U.S. protection to balance Iran.
the saudi–pakistan agreement makes sense now in a way it didn’t before.
It’s not about projecting strength. It’s about managing a weakness.
Saudi Arabia is trying to build a structure where it doesn’t have to carry the full burden of a conflict with Iran. Where the United States provides firepower, Israel applies pressure, and Pakistan fills the manpower gap if things escalate, especially if the U.S. continues to want to avoid a full ground war. In that scenario, Pakistani ground forces would likely be central to any serious attempt to actually defeat or contain Iran on the ground.
But, none of this really locks in the way it looks on paper. These kinds of coalitions sound strong until pressure hits. Then the cracks show. Countries don’t move as one. They move based on their own interests. So the whole strategy Saudi Arabia is relying on only works if everyone else shows up and that’s far from guaranteed.
That’s what I got wrong the first time. I thought the pact was about projecting strength outward. But it’s actually about managing a vulnerability. It’s Saudi Arabia quietly acknowledging that if a real, full-scale war with Iran happens, it can’t handle it alone.
So instead of preparing to fight that war on its own, Saudi Arabia is building a setup where others do the heavy lifting, the U.S. in the air, Pakistan on the ground, so it never has to face Iran directly.
On paper, that looks smart. In reality, it only works if everyone shows up.
If the war intensifies and the U.S. holds back, or Pakistan continues to hesitate, that whole plan falls apart and then Saudi Arabia is left exactly where it didn’t want to be: facing Iran without the cover it depends on.