Voila! We finally have the text of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA). And no, it hasn’t been put out by the Government of Pakistan. Here, there has been no discussion on the agreement, no approval from parliament. It just happened, like things now do in this country. Vive le Pakistan!

We have got it from Turkiye. Not exactly a beacon of democracy that country, but it has been presented to its parliament and has found its way to the media.

When the trilateral MJDA, a most ungainly abbreviation, was signed and reported on, headlines focused on its collective-defence language: an attack on one is an attack on all. Expected, because a press release was all we had and this point was its hallmark. There was no written text to flyspeck and analyse. Now we have it.

Mercifully, read closely, the text tells a more cautious story. The pact — fortunately — promises much in principle but gives considerable wiggle room to the three state parties in practice. That, as should be obvious from my drift, is not a flaw, given the fraught circumstances that have birthed it. It also means that those who want to plunge Pakistan into the Middle East abyss need to temper expectations.

The Agreement’s strongest provision is Article 1. If any Party’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, or recognised borders are threatened, the Parties “shall use all necessary means” to eliminate the threat. The wording is mandatory and expansive, though territorial integrity and sovereignty can still be broadly interpreted (does non-contact attack constitute a threat to territorial integrity and sovereignty? Non-contact can be non-kinetic — cyber — or kinetic).

Article 2 declares that an external armed attack on one Party “shall be considered an attack against all,” requiring the Parties to “immediately assist” the victim. Once again, the nature of such an attack is left ambiguous and links up with the questions above.

That said, the same article that creates this obligation also limits it. Support is to be determined “following an objective assessment of the assistance required,” and the Parties are to cooperate “within the limits of their available resources.” In plain terms, no Party has committed in advance to any specific level of military support. Put another way, one can assume that each case will be assessed on its merits, and each capital will decide what and how it can bring to the table.

That is a significant qualification. In treaty law the difference between a result obligation and a best-efforts obligation is the difference between a guarantee and a promise to try. Article 2 sits closer to the latter. The gap between Article 1’s sweeping (but non-specific)........

© The Friday Times