The arrival in Tehran of Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, Pakistan’s army chief and Türkiye’s intelligence chief may prove more consequential than another round of American or Israeli military threats.
Three powerful Muslim countries, bound by the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, sat across the table from Iran while Washington and Israel contemplated renewed military operations.
The question is not merely what these leaders discussed, but what they may have quietly agreed to do—or refuse to do—when the next missiles begin flying.
The delegation was extraordinary in its composition. Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin represented countries possessing enormous financial, military, diplomatic and strategic influence.
Their collective appearance conveyed that Iran’s security could no longer be treated exclusively as a confrontation between Tehran, Washington and Tel Aviv.
Regional powers were asserting their own interests in determining whether another devastating war would engulf their neighbourhood.
The war with Iran has transformed American military installations across the Gulf from instruments of deterrence into potential targets of retaliation. Reports and assessments of American military repositioning towards Israel, Jordan and other locations reflect this wider vulnerability.
For Washington, geographic access remains a military advantage; for Gulf governments, that same access increasingly carries the risk of devastating retaliation.
Saudi Arabia consequently faces an exceptionally difficult choice. American air defence systems, intelligence cooperation, maintenance arrangements and advanced weapons remain important to its security.
Yet the presence of American forces can expose Saudi oil installations, airports, industrial infrastructure and civilian populations to Iranian or Houthi attacks. The attacks around Ras Tanura have demonstrated how rapidly regional warfare can threaten energy supplies and global economic stability.
Riyadh must therefore calculate whether American protection is reducing its vulnerability or contributing to it.
Here lies the first possible hidden significance of the Tehran meeting. Iran may have sought assurances that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye would neither participate in renewed American-Israeli attacks nor facilitate them through military installations, airspace, intelligence or logistical support.
No publicly disclosed agreement establishes that such promises were made. Nevertheless, the subject would be entirely consistent with Iran’s longstanding concern about foreign military infrastructure being used against it.
The second possibility points in the opposite direction. The Makkah Pact countries may have arrived not simply as sympathetic neighbours, but as a collective deterrent. Their defence agreement treats an attack against one member as a matter of common security. The presence of nuclear-armed Pakistan, NATO member Türkiye and economically powerful Saudi Arabia could therefore convey a warning that further Iranian or Houthi attacks against Saudi territory risk widening the conflict. Collective defence, however, does not automatically establish a commitment to join an American war.
This dual character makes the delegation particularly significant. It could simultaneously reassure Iran against foreign aggression and warn Tehran against attacking Saudi Arabia. Such diplomacy is not necessarily contradictory. It reflects an attempt to establish reciprocal restraint: regional states would avoid becoming launching platforms for attacks on Iran, while Iran would avoid retaliating against countries that remained outside the fighting. Whether such an understanding was actually reached remains undisclosed.
The third possibility concerns Qatar’s parallel diplomatic initiative. Unlike the three Makkah Pact countries, Qatar has maintained an intermediary role between Washington and Tehran.
Its proposed seven-day confidence-building framework sought to bridge disagreements over nuclear activities, sanctions, maritime access and the wider conflict. Reports also indicate that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye support mediation.
Thus, the Tehran consultations could represent complementary diplomatic tracks rather than competing initiatives.
Iran’s response to the Qatari proposal was nevertheless uncompromising. Tehran objected to demands for nuclear concessions before meaningful economic relief, insisting that the American blockade of Iranian ports and restrictions on oil exports must be addressed first. Washington, conversely, wanted nuclear commitments from the beginning.
The dispute was therefore not merely over the contents of a peace agreement, but over which party would surrender its leverage before receiving guarantees.
The most consequential outcome of the Tehran meeting may lie not in what was publicly announced, but in what was deliberately withheld.
A day-long consultation involving Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, Pakistan’s army chief, Türkiye’s intelligence chief and Iran’s highest political and security authorities could hardly have been confined to the four lines of the joint communiqué.
Such meetings necessarily involve extensive deliberations on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats arising from an ongoing war, including American military bases, Iranian retaliation, Saudi security, the Strait of Hormuz, economic sanctions and the consequences of another American-Israeli offensive.
Drawing on my experience attending high-level meetings as press secretary and media adviser to the president of Pakistan, I know that public statements rarely disclose the full substance of sensitive diplomatic and security consultations.
The positive assessments expressed by the Iranian leadership and the visiting delegations strongly suggest that the participants found sufficient common ground to explore practical understandings and a coordinated pathway for responding to future developments.
Such understandings may include assurances of non-participation in renewed attacks against Iran, restrictions on the use of regional military facilities, reciprocal restraint towards Gulf countries and mechanisms for further consultations should Washington and Israel resume hostilities.
Kuwait and the other Gulf countries will therefore become important indicators. Their decisions concerning American bases, airspace, logistical support and diplomatic engagement could reveal whether the Tehran initiative develops into a broader regional non-aggression arrangement.
The Houthis’ conduct will be equally revealing. A sustained reduction in attacks on Saudi infrastructure could indicate that Tehran and Riyadh have found a mechanism to separate Gulf security from the wider American-Israeli confrontation, although Houthi decision-making cannot simply be equated with Iranian instructions.
The timing adds urgency. Reports indicate concern about renewed American and Israeli military action around the November 3 American midterm elections. Whether such an offensive actually occurs remains uncertain.
However, if it does, the military effectiveness of the campaign will depend partly on regional access, intelligence, logistics and the willingness of neighbouring governments to absorb the consequences of Iranian retaliation.
Ultimately, Tehran may have achieved something strategically important without obtaining a single publicly declared concession: it has compelled influential regional governments to discuss security with Iran rather than merely discuss Iran with Washington. That is a meaningful diplomatic shift, even if its durability remains untested.
The real verdict on the Tehran meeting will not emerge from its carefully worded communiqué.
It will emerge when Washington next demands military access, when Israel considers another strike, and when Iran decides where its missiles will—or will not—fall. If regional governments refuse to become instruments of another war, the Makkah Pact may be remembered not as an alliance formed to confront Iran, but as the beginning of a Middle East determined to prevent outside powers from deciding its fate.
