igned on August 7, the trilateral Makkah Joint Defence Agreement unites Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It comes apparently in response to the ongoing US-Iran conflict and Israel’s continued aggression. This pact may strengthen regional alliances and reduce reliance on outside Western powers.

Reacting to the development, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Baqaei, said: “This development is an important sign that the countries of the region have concluded that they cannot rely on and trust the claim of security provided by the United States and some other actors outside the region. They are seeking another course, relying on their own capabilities and perspectives.”

These remarks have defeated the Western narrative that projects the pact as the foundation of an anti-Iran bloc, thereby challenging claims of division in the Middle East. These three nations combine unique strengths that they can bring to any conflict. Pakistan holds significant strategic capability through its large, experienced military. Saudi Arabia’s financial resources and energy exports and Turkey’s advanced military industry and large army can be economically and militarily instrumental in combating regional security threats through a coordinated joint defence mechanism.

This collective-security agreement can ensure maritime patrolling across the Western Indian Ocean, from the Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea through protected shipping lanes. The pact can be seen as the first serious foundational block for a more autonomous regional security order. It can save the region in particular and the world in general from further catastrophes.

The US aggression against Iran and the latter’s retaliatory strikes on military installations and infrastructure in the Gulf countries and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the key shipping route that carries 20 percent of the world’s oil, are significantly limiting global oil supplies, causing a major worldwide hike in fuel prices. The US naval blockade of Iranian ports and vessels transiting to and from Iran is weakening the economy of the region.

Some of the regional blocs formed recently - such as the Arab Coalition led by Saudi Arabia in 2015 to reinstate President Hadi and to counter the Houthi Movement, and the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition, an intergovernmental military alliance representing Muslim-majority nations to forge a coordinated counter-terrorism strategy - have not had the desired impact.

The three nations combine unique strengths that they can bring to any conflict. Pakistan holds significant strategic capability through its large, experienced military. Saudi Arabia’s financial resources and Turkey’s advanced military industry can be instrumental in combating regional security threats.

Therefore, the new platform needs to take concrete steps to bring other Muslim majority nations on board. Forums such as the Gulf Cooperation Council, a major regional organisation in the Arabian Peninsula, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League can be taken on board to vouch for a broader security architecture to conclusively end the current US-Iran hostilities through meaningful strategic dialogue by a redistribution of power dynamics. The sole purpose of such treaties should be to save humanity from war.

Historically, literary narratives have framed political and military treaties as important but fragile documents because they seldom succeed in achieving their desired objectives. The mightier power in a treaty often flouts it before the ink dries up. William Shakespeare frequently writes about the vital need to back commitments, alliances and military vows with direct execution rather than empty talk: “Dogged war bristle[s] his angry crest/ And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace” (King John). This underscores the fragile nature of intergovernmental peace treaties and agreements in the wake of military hostilities. Many literary classics seem to argue that treaties for peace and security rarely look like moral triumphs. Once a conflict starts, they seem to be transactional arrangements. The victors seek the imposition of their absolute will on the defeated. If this trilateral pact can prevent a full-scale conflict between Iran and other Gulf Countries, or can end the US-Iran fighting, then this is what humanity, living under the constant threat of nuclear weapons, needs the most.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s prophetic remarks remain relevant. He points out that while past generations owned their violence openly, modern ‘civilised’ people hypocritically condemn bloodshed while engaging in it with greater energy. “Civilisation has made mankind, if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty” (Notes from Underground).

Recent developments in the US-Iran war reveal timeless patterns in the way societies at war justify and conceptualise battle. We are persuaded to agree with Leo Tolstoy, who after serving as an artillery officer in the Russian army during the Crimean War to fight in the siege of Sevastopol, wrote his semi-autobiographical sketches based on his direct, brutal experiences in Sevastopol Sketches, in which he tells the readers to stop seeing war as an exciting adventure story: “You behold the frightful, soul-stirring scenes; you behold war, not from its conventional, beautiful and brilliant side, with music and drum-beat, with fluttering flags and galloping generals, but you behold war in its real phase—in blood, in suffering, in death.” Parties to the Makkah Agreement should work on saving humanity from an impending war whose cost in human lives and their raw suffering can hardly be calculated.

The writer is the head of the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Lahore.