Will the Mecca Pact Have Teeth? Possible Membership of Syria and Qatar in the Mecca Pact

The membership of Syria and Qatar in the Mecca Pact fundamentally changes the nature of this alliance and increases the risk of a future conflict.

According to the report of Ambassador Arjan's international reporter, the Persian Gulf International Forum based in Washington has investigated the possibility of Qatar and Syria joining the Mecca Treaty in an article.

It should be noted that the publication of foreign articles does not mean the approval of its content by Ambassador Arjan.

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Three years of chain conflicts have fundamentally changed the security landscape of the Middle East. American weapons, military installations and security guarantees remain central to the region.

But Middle Eastern governments are increasingly questioning whether reliance on a single external guarantor is enough in a region where wars cross borders, alliances overlap and conflict, and yesterday's partners can quickly become today's vulnerabilities.

These changing circumstances explain the attention that has been generated around the Mecca Pact—a new defense arrangement linking Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan.

More than just another security agreement, this pact reflects an emerging regional preference for overlapping layers of protection rather than exclusive alliances.

The original signatories of the pact have made it clear that they are open to expanding the alliance, just as NATO has grown from a few Western European countries to cover the entire continent.

Two possible, albeit very different, cases for future expansion are Syria and Qatar, both of which have good reason to seek the specific protection that a military alliance provides. Doha is already at the center of one of the densest networks of American, Turkish and Persian Gulf security relations in the Middle East.

Damascus, on the other hand, is trying to rebuild a state whose conventional military capabilities have been destroyed by more than a decade of war and further weakened after the collapse of the Assad government; So for Qatar, joining will primarily be about redundancy and adding another layer of strategic insurance. For Syria, it will be much closer to national reconstruction.

Qatar adds financial weight, energy importance, diplomatic reach and connections with Washington

Both countries have a lot to offer other members of the pact. Qatar adds financial weight, energy importance, diplomatic reach and connections with Washington. While Syria cannot contribute much in terms of military capacity—at least initially—it provides vital strategic geography in the Levant.

Membership also imposes costs on both countries. Doha must consider whether formal participation in another defense framework could upset its cautious geopolitical balance and arouse suspicion of Iran and its regional proxies.

Syria could gain much-needed deterrence against external threats, but its position on the front lines of an ongoing low-intensity conflict with Israel could be an unpleasant test of whether the treaty's collective defense language has meaningful consequences; Therefore, the possible accession of Syria and Qatar to the Mecca Pact raises a bigger question about what this alliance intends to be. Will it remain just another flexible regional partnership, or will it become the foundation of a more substantial security architecture?

Qatar's search for another layer of defense

Qatar's potential interest must first be understood in the context of a broader review of US security guarantees underway across the Persian Gulf. For decades, Doha had less reason than some of its neighbors to pursue aggressive strategic hedging.

Its close defense relationship with Washington, along with the US military presence at Al-Adeed Air Base, had provided significant assurance in the US security relationship.

Escalating regional tensions since October 7, 2023, have fueled concerns in Gulf capitals that Washington could have superior military capabilities without necessarily being willing or able to protect its partners.

In recent years, this confidence has been shaken. Escalating regional tensions since October 7, 2023, have fueled concerns in Gulf capitals that Washington could have superior military capabilities without necessarily being willing or able to protect its partners.

Israel's 2025 attack on Doha made this concern particularly acute for Qatar. More broadly, Washington's difficulty in containing Israeli military operations elsewhere in the region has raised uncomfortable questions about the limits of American influence.

The growing tensions between Israel and Türkiye have exacerbated this concern. Israel's airstrikes on Syrian sites linked to Turkish military activity have left Gulf states with a troubling question: If Washington is struggling to contain military escalation linked to Turkey—a NATO member with one of the alliance's largest armies—what should smaller Gulf states conclude about the reliability of external protection in a crisis?

The answer is not necessarily to abandon Washington, but to gain more agency. The Makkah Treaty is compatible with this emerging logic.

For Qatar, the pact will not mean the end of its military ties with the US, but will provide another regional layer that includes intelligence cooperation, missile defense, maritime security, military training and potentially industrial-defense cooperation.

Crucially, Doha will not start from scratch. Its security relationship with Turkey is already deep, while its coordination with Saudi Arabia has steadily strengthened since the end of the Persian Gulf conflict in 2021.

This cooperation was further intensified by the increasing pressure of the Gaza war and the Iran-Israel confrontation on Persian Gulf diplomacy and regional security; And Qatar will have a lot to bring to the pact.

It is a major global supplier of LNG, a diplomatic broker, host to critical US military infrastructure, and a major international investor; Therefore, its membership can connect the pact more directly to energy security, Strait of Hormuz, global gas markets and regional diplomacy. This makes Qatar an unusually valuable member.

But it is precisely Qatar's diplomatic value that could complicate joining the alliance. The tiny Persian Gulf emirate has spent more than two decades cultivating access to a wide range of actors across the Middle East, including many who distrust each other.

Its mediation strategy works to some extent, as governments and non-state actors often see Doha as sufficiently connected to rival camps without being fully absorbed into either.

Formal membership in a defense framework that includes Saudi Arabia makes this positioning more difficult, especially if Iranian security officials begin to perceive the pact as an emerging strategic alignment against Tehran.

This result is not inevitable. Qatar will not automatically cease to be an effective mediator simply because it has joined another security arrangement. States typically maintain security alignments while maintaining diplomatic channels with adversaries; NATO member Turkey, which maintains working relations with NATO rival Russia, is a prominent example.

The Makkah Treaty is not necessarily designed as an anti-Iranian alliance. Turkey and Pakistan, both of which have delicate relations with Tehran, have strong reasons to prevent this impression from forming.

Neither would benefit from allowing the deal to be portrayed as a coming-of-age bloc, especially at a moment of heightened Iranian vulnerability; Therefore, Ankara and Islamabad have incentives to demonstrate that deeper cooperation with Riyadh and Doha does not mean building an architecture of sectarian containment against Tehran.

However, in diplomacy, perceptions can be as important as formal intentions; Qatar must therefore weigh the deterrence benefits of another regional security umbrella against the possibility that Iran, its proxies, or other actors with whom Doha seeks to maintain channels may begin to see it as a member of an opposition defense coalition rather than a mediator.

This dilemma is not simply unity against neutrality. Qatar has never been neutral in the strict sense. It is a "major non-NATO ally" of the United States, hosts American forces, and has close security ties with Türkiye. The more important question is whether another explicit defense commitment will change how Qatar's enemies perceive it.

Syria needs allies, and it has a lot to offer

Syria approaches this agreement from an almost opposite direction. While Qatar already has numerous security ties and active military institutions, the post-Assad government in Syria has extremely limited conventional capacity.

Its air force and air defenses are severely depleted, and much of its ground force equipment has been destroyed during the 14-year conflict. The new government in Damascus has a more immediate vulnerability: it must rebuild military and security institutions while simultaneously consolidating political authority, a difficult task in a conflict-prone region with many foreign actors who have a vital interest in its failure.

The Syrian government has emphasized reconstruction, economic cooperation, and restoring regional and international partnerships, including publicly acknowledging that it is considering joining the Mecca Treaty.

Continued Israeli military operations, tensions related to Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed networks, and reported Iranian threats against the Syrian leadership give Damascus strong incentives to seek partners capable of doing more than financing reconstruction.