هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
Pakistan is stepping into the escalating confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis at a moment when the conflict is threatening to open a wider regional front.
The latest escalation has brought Saudi cities and energy infrastructure under attack, while fighting around Yemen and the Red Sea is adding pressure to already vulnerable maritime routes and energy supplies. What began as a renewed Saudi-Houthi confrontation is increasingly becoming entangled with the wider regional conflict involving Iran, the United States and the security of the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb.
On Sept. 17, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry publicly called for Houthi activities in the region to stop, citing the “dangerous situation” around Bab el-Mandeb, while also stressing that the crisis should be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy rather than coercive measures that could fuel further escalation.
Islamabad has also been pressing Tehran to use its influence over the Houthis to curb attacks on Saudi Arabia. Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir has intensified contacts with Iranian officials as Islamabad seeks to keep open a channel to Tehran while maintaining its defence commitments to Riyadh.
That puts Pakistan in an increasingly difficult position. It is trying to act as a mediator in a conflict involving Saudi Arabia and Iran while simultaneously serving as Riyadh’s defence partner. Last month, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, under which an armed attack on one member is to be treated as an attack on all three. The agreement is now facing its first major test.
Islamabad has so far stopped short of discussing a military response under the pact, saying it would act if and when the circumstances require it. At the same time, Pakistani officials have made clear that the country would stand by Saudi Arabia if the conflict escalates.
The tension between these positions lies at the heart of Pakistan’s current diplomatic effort. How far can Islamabad mediate with Tehran while remaining bound by its growing security relationship with Riyadh? What leverage does it actually have over the parties involved? And what does its response reveal about the role the new Makkah alliance is intended to play when one of its members comes under sustained attack?
For Pakistan, the crisis is therefore about more than containing the Saudi-Houthi confrontation. It is an early test of whether Islamabad can turn its new regional partnerships into a diplomatic asset without being drawn into a conflict involving partners, rivals and competing security interests. Its response could help define both the limits of its mediation and the practical meaning of the Makkah alliance.
Mediation under pressure
Islamabad’s efforts to ease tensions between the Houthis and Riyadh are driven by several considerations, chief among them its strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia. Pakistan has a strong interest in protecting that relationship and containing the fallout from regional instability, given Riyadh’s political, economic and military importance to Islamabad.
Those interests have taken on greater weight since the two countries signed the Makkah mutual defence agreement on 7 August. The pact has deepened Pakistan’s security commitments to Saudi Arabia at a time when Riyadh faces a widening regional threat, raising a more immediate question for Islamabad: how can it protect its alliance with Saudi Arabia without being drawn into a conflict that could pull the region further into escalation?
At the same time, Pakistan has a strong interest in avoiding a confrontation that could force it to choose between Riyadh and Tehran.
Despite its close political, economic and military ties with Saudi Arabia, Islamabad maintains important relations with Iran, shaped by their shared border, security concerns, energy ties and broader cross-border interdependence. An open confrontation with Tehran would therefore carry significant political and economic costs for Pakistan.
This helps explain Islamabad’s push for diplomacy. By seeking to prevent the Saudi-Houthi confrontation from widening, Pakistan can try to protect its interests with both sides while keeping its own strategic options open.
The mediation also offers Islamabad an opportunity to reinforce its emerging role as a regional intermediary capable of maintaining channels across rival camps. That role has taken on added significance as Pakistan has sought to facilitate communication between Tehran and Washington during their latest escalation.
What leverage does Islamabad have?
Islamabad enters the mediation with several assets that give it room to manoeuvre. But their value lies less in Islamabad’s ability to impose a settlement than in its capacity to carry messages, open channels and create the conditions for an understanding between the parties.
That also places a limit on what Pakistan can achieve. Without direct means of compelling any side to accept a particular political course, the success of its mediation will ultimately depend on the willingness of the parties to engage.
Pakistan’s most important advantage is its relationship with both sides of the regional equation.
It has broad strategic and defence ties with Saudi Arabia, while maintaining an open channel with Iran. Islamabad can therefore use its relationship with Tehran to press Iran to use whatever influence it has over the Houthis to reduce escalation, whether towards Saudi Arabia or around the Bab el-Mandeb and Red Sea.
Its position between Riyadh and Tehran also gives Pakistan a channel for passing messages that few other actors can replicate. Media reports have indicated that Islamabad conveyed a Saudi warning to Iran, urging Tehran to use its influence to curb Houthi attacks. This was accompanied by contacts between Pakistan’s army chief and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi over efforts to revive diplomatic channels and contain the escalation.
Pakistan also brings years of political engagement with Iran to the table. In recent months, Islamabad has been involved in contacts linked to the Iranian-US track while maintaining regular exchanges and visits with Iranian officials. That sustained engagement has given Pakistan a closer understanding of Tehran’s calculations and the channels through which it may be able to exert diplomatic influence.
Its leverage is not limited to diplomacy. Pakistan’s military standing and its defence relationship with Saudi Arabia add another layer to its role. Its military cooperation and presence in Saudi Arabia give Islamabad’s engagement a strategic dimension that would not exist if its mediation relied solely on diplomatic contacts.
At the same time, Pakistan does not necessarily have to work alone. Oman could provide a complementary channel that addresses one of Islamabad’s main limitations: its lack of a direct and influential relationship with the Houthis.
Muscat has long maintained channels with the Houthis, while Pakistan can operate through its relationships with Riyadh and Tehran. The two approaches could therefore be combined into a broader mediation track linking Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Houthis.
Such coordination would give the diplomatic effort more than one point of access to the parties involved and could allow Islamabad to operate where its own channels are strongest, while relying on Oman where Muscat has greater access and influence.
A practical test for the Mecca agreement
The latest Houthi escalation represents the first practical test of the Mecca defense agreement, and it is therefore difficult to separate the role Islamabad is trying to play from the nature of its commitments to this alliance. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif expressed this directly when he commented on the escalation against Riyadh by saying that the time had come to put the Mecca agreement into effect, while also stressing that Pakistan’s commitment to protecting Saudi Arabia and the holy sites remains firm and ongoing, and is not dependent solely on the existence of a formal agreement.
From this perspective, Pakistan’s move can be seen as an early attempt to give practical meaning to the new alliance, amid questions since its formation over how far it will go beyond being a symbolic political and defence framework.
The collective defence principle set out in the agreement does not necessarily require an immediate military response to every crisis. It could also involve less escalatory tools, including political deterrence, diplomatic pressure, crisis management and preventive mediation.
The Yemen crisis therefore gives Pakistan an opportunity to test a broader understanding of the Mecca alliance: one in which its role is not limited to responding militarily after an attack, but also includes efforts to prevent crises from reaching that point.
Such an approach may be particularly relevant given the potential cost of direct military involvement and the different interests and calculations of the alliance’s members towards regional conflicts.
Preventive diplomacy could consequently become an important part of how the alliance operates in practice — not as a substitute for collective defence, but as a means of containing crises before military intervention becomes necessary, while preserving the alliance’s cohesion and its ability to respond when deterrence fails.
What about the potential challenges?
Islamabad’s diplomatic effort, however, faces several obstacles that could limit its ability to carry the mediation through to its desired outcome.
The first is the question of neutrality itself. The Houthis may view Pakistan as closer to Riyadh because of its new defence partnership with Saudi Arabia. That could make it harder for Islamabad to present itself as an intermediary standing at an equal distance from the parties, and could in turn limit the Houthis’ willingness to fully engage with a process led by Pakistan.
Islamabad is also placing considerable weight on Tehran’s ability to influence the Houthis and moderate their actions. But that leverage has its limits. The movement has demonstrated a significant degree of autonomy in its decision-making in recent years, often acting according to pragmatic calculations tied to its own immediate interests. Those interests do not necessarily coincide with Iran’s priorities or regional calculations. Persuading Tehran to support de-escalation, therefore, would not automatically mean that the Houthis would respond in the same way.
The task is further complicated by the fact that the current crisis can no longer be viewed simply through a Saudi-Houthi, or even a Saudi-Iranian, lens. It has become part of a broader regional picture in which the US-Iran conflict intersects with tensions around the Bab el-Mandeb, the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, as well as the security of international shipping and attacks on US interests and military bases in parts of the Gulf.
Any durable de-escalation would therefore require understandings at several levels, involving Saudi Arabia, the Houthis and Iran, and potentially the United States and Oman as well. This makes Islamabad’s task considerably more difficult: it is not mediating a contained bilateral dispute, but navigating a web of overlapping interests and calculations that cannot easily be disentangled through a single diplomatic channel.
Pakistan, and the Makkah alliance with it, are consequently facing a particularly sensitive early test. If Islamabad can help contain the crisis, it could spare the alliance from being confronted at an early stage with complex security and military obligations, while easing pressures that could otherwise force its members towards choices at a time when the costs of further escalation are high for all sides.
Islamabad is therefore likely to draw on its political channels, regional relationships and diplomatic leverage to push the de-escalation process forward — not only to protect its interests and relationships with Saudi Arabia and Iran, but also to preserve the cohesion of the new alliance and give it an opportunity to demonstrate its relevance without becoming directly involved in an open confrontation.
In that sense, the mediation is an early test of whether the Makkah alliance can move beyond its declared political and defence framework to become a mechanism capable of managing and containing regional crises before they reach the point of military confrontation. The outcome of Islamabad’s efforts could therefore have implications well beyond the current crisis, shaping perceptions of the alliance, its credibility and its future regional role. The question is whether Pakistan can navigate the competing interests surrounding the crisis without becoming a party to it.