The Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish collective defence pact’s operative sentence, “an armed attack on one signatory shall be regarded as an attack against them all”, immediately triggered talk of an “Islamic NATO”, albeit a Sunni one, as it appeared to combine Turkish defence technology, Pakistani military prowess and strategic arsenal, and Saudi oil-financial power. Last year, shortly after the Israeli strike on Hamas in Doha, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had signed a “Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement” at Riyadh. That, too, had contained a NATO Article 5-type declaration, “an attack on one will be treated as an attack on both,” though that wasn’t invoked when Iran and its assets attacked Riyadh and its energy infrastructure.

The US, prioritising Israel, failed to protect Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states from strikes by Iran and its allies, with the latter disrupting energy shipments. Turkey, a NATO ally with a large military, has often criticised Israel over Gaza, hosted Hamas political figures, and drifted from NATO and the US. Given Israel’s increasingly aggressive military stance, for Saudi Arabia and........

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