Riyadh / Islamabad / Sana’a
Reports that Pakistan is considering direct airstrikes against Ansarullah at Saudi Arabia’s request expose the contradiction at the heart of the newly signed Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye.
Presented as a defensive pact, the agreement is now being invoked after Yemeni retaliatory strikes on Saudi targets.
The central contradiction
Saudi and Pakistani rhetoric presents Ansarullah’s attacks as “aggression,” while ignoring the Saudi-led airstrikes and attacks inside Yemen that preceded them.
The supposed defensive pact could therefore become a mechanism for outsourcing Saudi Arabia’s war to foreign militaries.
Pakistan’s strategic dilemma
Islamabad’s potential involvement reflects more than military cooperation. Pakistan remains heavily dependent on Gulf financial support, creating strong incentives to provide Riyadh with military backing.
Saudi Arabia’s security problem
After years of massive spending on Western weapons, Riyadh has failed to eliminate the Yemeni resistance or secure a decisive military outcome. Bringing in Pakistani forces does not resolve that strategic failure. It internationalizes it.
The escalation risk
Direct Pakistani air operations against Yemen would widen the conflict beyond the Gulf, drawing South Asia deeper into the Middle Eastern battlefield.
The Mecca Pact may be marketed as deterrence, but transforming a defensive agreement into an instrument of intervention risks producing the opposite effect: a wider war and a more fragmented regional security order.