Power rarely rises into an empty space.
When one power expands, it eventually enters political, economic or geographical space that somebody else considers important. The resulting counterweight does not necessarily emerge because the two sides are ideological enemies, but because their interests begin to collide.
This pattern has repeated throughout history and can be witnessed in the Middle Eastern chessboard too.
At Suez in 1956, British and French interests collided with those of a rising US, accelerating the transition towards an American-led Middle Eastern order.
The destruction of Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003 then removed Iran's principal Arab counterweight, opening space for Tehran to expand its regional influence.
Iran's rise eventually collided with Saudi interests. Combined with doubts over America's security commitment, this contributed to the convergence of Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Now the wheels may be turning again.
The emerging Makkah architecture increasingly resembles three strategic theatres: Türkiye in the Levant, Saudi Arabia in the Gulf and Pakistan in South Asia. Each faces another regional power with competing interests: Israel, UAE and India.
In the Levant, Türkiye's expanding influence intersects with Israel's security interests. In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and UAE increasingly compete for commercial and geopolitical influence.
In South Asia, Pakistan remains the principal counterweight to India's regional ambitions.
India, Israel and UAE already cooperate alongside the US through the I2U2 framework. It is not a military alliance, but the three countries do not need to discover each other in response to Makkah.
The first collision is already visible.
With the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Türkiye emerged as one of the most influential external powers in Syria. For Israel, Turkish military power near its northern frontier creates a different security calculation.
Syria is where the spheres of influence of Türkiye and Israel meet.
On 18 August, Israel launched airstrikes against Syria's Abu al-Duhur airbase in the northwest. Israel said the attack was intended to prevent an anticipated Turkish military deployment there.
The message is clear.
Israel is prepared to use force against what it perceives as an expansion of Turkish military influence near its northern security perimeter.
Syria therefore becomes the first country to watch as the interests around Makkah and I2U2 collide.
India and Pakistan have competed since independence in 1947. The Makkah Pact may appear Middle Eastern, but Pakistan's membership inevitably creates a South Asian spillover.
India's relationships with Israel and UAE have deepened substantially. UAE bestowed its highest award, the Order of Zayed, upon Narendra Modi in 2019.
Coincidentally, Saudi Arabia had bestowed the Order of King Abdulaziz upon him three years earlier, only a year after Pakistan refused to join the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.
That makes it clear that it is not about permanent friends and enemies. It is about changing interests.
However, the South Asian chessboard will not be played in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel or Türkiye. It will be played in Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Dhaka has said it views the Makkah Pact positively and would consider joining if invited. If that happens, Pakistan would sit on India's western frontier while another member of the same security architecture would sit to its east.
Then comes China.
China occupies India's northern strategic attention, while its Indian Ocean presence has generated concerns described through the "String of Pearls".
For New Delhi, such a configuration could begin to resemble strategic encirclement.
But India can move in another direction to counter this potential encirclement: Afghanistan.
As Pakistan-Afghanistan relations deteriorate, India has an incentive to deepen ties with Kabul. In October 2025, India hosted Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in New Delhi, the first visit by a senior Taliban leader since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
The symmetry is difficult to ignore.
Pakistan can look across India towards Bangladesh. India can look across Pakistan towards Afghanistan.
Neither outcome is predetermined. Bangladesh has not joined the Makkah Pact, and Afghanistan is not an Indian proxy. But Dhaka and Kabul are increasingly important countries in the South Asian chessboard.
Saudi Arabia and UAE remain deeply connected, but friends compete when interests collide.
For decades, UAE established itself as the Gulf's commercial and financial hub. Saudi Arabia increasingly wants a larger share of that role.
Their interests have also diverged in Yemen and the Red Sea through relationships with competing Yemeni factions.
The issue is whose vision of the Gulf becomes more influential.
To understand where this competition may go next, look at Oman.
Geography gives Oman something neither money nor military power can manufacture: direct access to the Indian Ocean without passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
For UAE, whose principal ports sit inside the Gulf, Oman offers an alternative route when Hormuz becomes vulnerable.
Saudi Arabia faces a different problem. Iran can threaten its eastern maritime access while the Houthis can disrupt approaches to Bab al-Mandeb in the west. Oman potentially provides a third direction.
But Oman has spent decades avoiding such alignment, maintaining relations with Iran while remaining inside the GCC and frequently acting as a mediator.
As Saudi-UAE competition grows, both have reasons to pull Muscat closer. Oman can exploit its geography without surrendering the independence that makes it valuable.
The question may not be which side Oman chooses, but how long it can remain valuable to both without choosing either.
Above these regional competitions sit two larger powers.
The US remains Israel's principal security partner and helped establish I2U2. China is Pakistan's most important strategic partner and India's principal Asian competitor.
However, these lines blur when viewed through the lens of the wider US-China rivalry.
China is Israel's largest trading partner in Asia and UAE's largest overall. Meanwhile, Washington maintains important relationships with Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
What may be emerging is a regional Cold War without clean blocs. Strategic ties may point towards US-Israel and China-Pakistan, while economic ties cut across the divide.
Iran further complicates the picture. It helped push Saudi Arabia towards new security partners, yet remains Israel's principal regional adversary.
But before the Makkah Pact generates the conditions for a counterweight to emerge, it has to survive its first real stress test: Iran and the Houthis.
Recent Houthi advances and attacks on Saudi interests have put that question on the table. Pressure around Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb will test whether the Makkah Pact can translate political commitments into strategic cooperation.
If the Makkah Pact fails this test, discussion of any counterweight becomes premature.
If it survives, institutionalises and perhaps expands, three separate rivalries may increasingly begin to look like one shared strategic problem.
India, Israel and UAE would not need to start from zero. I2U2 already provides the framework.
That does not mean a new military alliance will emerge. But counterweights are not necessarily born from opposition. They are often born from collision.
The first question is whether the Makkah Pact survives the Iranian threat.
Only then comes the second: Will its success create the conditions for its own counterweight?
About the Author: Waqas M Awan is a Luxembourg-based corporate professional and the author of Power of Sage: An Anti-thesis to Machiavellian Prince. He writes on economics, geopolitics, and power systems at his Substack publication Perspectives (waqasperspective). He has held senior finance roles at Amazon, Kraft Heinz, and KPMG.
