Netanyahu's Iran Plan FAILED; Saudi Move Makes It WORSE!

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Right, so tiny violins at the ready folks, because things seem to be going all wrong again for Benjamin Netanyahu.

All of this war against Iran was meant to leave Tehran battered, isolated, and standing outside the Middle East’s version of a nightclub as if they’d just turned up wearing Crocs.

Instead, Saudi Arabia has signed a new defence pact with Türkiye and Pakistan, Iranian officials have been strutting around as if they’d just won some sort of a diplomatic jackpot over it, and Saudi Arabia’s clever workaround for Hormuz to get away from Iran, has just ended up with a problem that could put them in a Great Dane level of diplomatic doggie doo doo in terms of the scale.

That workaround is their East-West pipeline. Their plan B to get the oil out. It allows the Saudis to move oil across the kingdom to Yanbu, load it onto tankers in the Red Sea, and avoid Hormuz like it’s an ex turning up at your wedding. Brilliant in theory, until commercial shipping starts getting hit near Yanbu as well. The little matter of you’re your Yemeni government allies starting beef with the Houthis again and them taking it directly to your doorstep.

So if Netanyahu’s main strategy was to sideline Iran, he may have just handed Tehran the biggest regional opportunity ever offered on a silver platter, complete with a bow and a card saying, “Love from, Bibi.”

Well now it might just be about to get so much worse for him.

Mehdi Rahimi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary news agency Khaneh Mellat, told Al Mayadeen that Iran had received an invitation to join the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement and that the proposal was under consideration.

That’s quite something, given that the whole point of Netanyahu and Trump’s war was to lock Tehran up in diplomatic isolation and throw away the key. But don’t break out the confetti and party hats just yet.

Saudi Arabia hasn’t confirmed it. Türkiye hasn’t confirmed it. Pakistan hasn’t confirmed it. Iran’s own foreign ministry hasn’t confirmed this either.

Nobody has said who actually issued this supposed invitation, what conditions Iran would need to meet, or whether anything close to an accession process is underway.

There’s no small Iranian flag propped beside an empty chair in Mecca quite yet. And yet in so many ways, this would make a lot of sense.

The Mecca Pact’s headline promise is simple enough. An armed attack against one signatory will be treated as an attack against all three.

President Erdoğan of Turkey said the agreement wasn’t directed at any particular country and could be open to other friendly states. That was enough for some commentators to start calling it an “Islamic NATO.” Catchy, but about as accurate as calling a WhatsApp group a government. There’s no published treaty text, no joint command, no standing force, no known membership process, and no automatic military response written anywhere except maybe on the back of a napkin at this point, this really is how new it literally is.

So it’s not a ready-made Muslim war machine. At least not yet.

What it does show is appetite.

Three countries with Washington already on speed dial have decided that putting all their trust in the orange dunce is starting to feel like a bad night at the casino.

That doesn’t mean they’re overthrowing the American order. They’re simply protecting themselves against its increasing number of shortcomings and the fact those shortcomings seem to have an annoying habit of leaving Iranian craters in their territories, certainly as is the case with the Saudis at any rate, but equally Turkey has issues with Israel right now, has doubts if NATO would come to their rescue as a NATO state, and Pakistan borders Iran and has interests in the Middle East crises not spreading further.

So after the past few months, who could blame them for cobbling this together?

After all, they host all the bases, radar, aircraft, intelligence, missile systems, fleets, and enough military spending to make an accountant want to curl up in the fetal position.

Yet Iran still holds the leverage over Hormuz.

Saudi oil infrastructure is still exposed, both by Iran and Ansarallah, the Houthis.

Commercial shipping is still stuffed.

And Washington has struggled to provide enough air-defence munitions to protect every regional partner while also sending military support to Israel.

This is what Saudi Arabia is watching.

The kingdom hasn’t suddenly become pro-Iran. It hasn’t abandoned the United States, expelled American forces, or invited the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps over for tea.

It has simply noticed that those selling security keep delivering escalation.

You can only stand under a gold-plated defence umbrella while still getting soaked for so long before you start to suspect there’s an issue with the warranty.

For Netanyahu, this is awkward because his plan depended on everyone accepting Israel’s preferred view of Iran.

Iran was the problem. The bogeyman. Israel and America were the solution.

Hit Tehran hard enough, strip away its allies, break its deterrence, and regional governments would have little choice but to organise themselves around Israeli military dominance.

That was the idea, anyway.

What Saudi Arabia needs is something less dramatic and more practical though.

It needs to stop being turned into a battlefield for a start.

Saudi Arabia has spent years building its capacity to move oil westwards, across the kingdom and out through the Red Sea. The purpose is clear. If Hormuz becomes dangerous or blocked, Saudi exports still have another way out.

Nobody has established who fired that or why at this point. So nobody gets to turn this into an Iranian attack, or a Houthi attack or proof that the Mecca Pact has set anything else off.

The important point though is this. Saudi Arabia built Yanbu to reduce the danger from Hormuz. Now commercial shipping has been hit near Yanbu too. Its fallback plan is inside the danger zone as well.

But the strategic consequence doesn’t vanish just because the attacker hasn’t been identified.

Yanbu matters because it reduces Saudi Arabia’s vulnerability in Hormuz. A strike on commercial shipping near Yanbu shows that moving oil towards the Red Sea doesn’t move the kingdom outside the region’s growing war risk.

The Gulf side is dangerous.

The Red Sea side is dangerous as well.

And the United States, despite all its bases, missiles, and security promises, cannot guarantee that Saudi energy infrastructure will remain safely beyond someone else’s escalation.

It also says vessels linked to those ships can be added to the list.

That’s not a small claim. It is Iran declaring that access to one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes will be subject to rules Tehran intends to enforce.

But another important distinction matters here too, because Iran is not collecting a universal toll from every ship passing through Hormuz.

A parliamentary committee has approved Article 3 of a draft measure dealing with charges for certain services. That is not the same as a completed law. It isn’t proof that Iran is already handing a bill to every passing vessel.

Some headlines have raced so far ahead of the facts you’d think walking was a sign of weakness.

The harder point doesn’t need exaggeration.

Netanyahu and Trump went to war promising to restore Western leverage over Iran and Hormuz.

Iran is now publicly stating the consequences vessels may face if they don’t comply with Iranian protocols.

Bombing Tehran hasn’t changed its position. It hasn’t removed its enforcement capacity. And it certainly hasn’t convinced shipowners or insurers that they can safely ignore Iranian warnings.

Look at the geography.

Hormuz is on one side of the Arabian Peninsula. Yanbu and the Red Sea are on the other.

Saudi Arabia can reduce its dependence on one vulnerable passage, but it can’t exactly pick up the kingdom and move it to Luxembourg.

Its oil facilities, ports, pipelines, and ships remain in a region where a war involving Iran can reach them from several different directions. And it might just have finally dawned on them that there is actually no escaping that.

So this is why the Iranian Mecca Pact invitation matters, even before anyone confirms it.

Saudi Arabia’s most urgent goal isn’t helping Netanyahu feel ideologically fulfilled. It’s keeping Saudi territory, energy infrastructure, and commercial shipping out of harm’s way.

And American protection hasn’t guaranteed that.

It can intercept some missiles. It can send another carrier. It can issue stern statements and sell another extremely expensive weapons system with a brochure showing a glowing radar screen if it likes. The Saudi’s will nod and grin and buy and then store it somewhere to gather dust with the rest of the their trinkets.

What it cannot do is make Iran disappear. Nobody can.

It cannot create a lasting Gulf security arrangement while treating one of the Gulf’s largest states as something that must be attacked forever and a day and never consulted.

At some point, someone has to talk.

Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, has left for Tehran with the Pakistani interior minister. The stated purpose is bilateral discussion and regional peace.

Oman’s foreign minister is scheduled to be in Tehran tomorrow for broader regional talks and obviously further talks over the Strait of Hormuz.

No, those visits don’t prove that they’re negotiating Iranian entry into the Mecca agreement.

Munir hasn’t been seen carrying a membership card. Oman hasn’t announced itself as a mediator on this issue. Nobody has published an agenda saying, “Item one: ruining Netanyahu’s week.” But Pakistan is one of the three signatories. Its army chief is travelling to Iran just after the invitation claim became public.

Oman, meanwhile, has spent years acting as a diplomatic bridge between Iran and its adversaries.

It would be a stretch to call that proof of accession negotiations, but it would be just as odd to pretend nothing politically significant is happening as well.

Instead, Pakistan is heading to Tehran, Oman is heading to Tehran, and a senior figure within Iran’s parliamentary media says a place inside the new regional framework is being considered.

Netanyahu didn’t want Iran in a conversation about regional security.

He wanted Iran to be the target around which everyone else gathered.

There’s a real difference.

But the likely requests are hardly mysterious. Saudi Arabia would want assurances that its cities, oil sites, and commercial shipping won’t become targets every time Israel and America decide Iran needs another lesson and a pact with Iran would you would imagine help that along. It may want agreed rules around Hormuz, direct military contact to prevent a shipping incident from turning into a regional war, and assurances that member states’ territory won’t be used to launch attacks on Iran.

Iran, for its part, would certainly want the same basic protection in reverse: no Saudi, Turkish, or Pakistani territory used as a base for another attack on Tehran. In other words, send the US packing. Is that too big a bridge to bear for the Saudi’s who have invested in US protection for so long though?

What there is no evidence for is Iran being told to abandon its allies, give up its weapons programs, or show up in Mecca with a handwritten apology to Benjamin Netanyahu. Pigs would fly and hell would freeze over before they’d ever go there, and they have plenty of leverage right now after all.

There could be direct military communication between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Pakistan, and Iran, because relying on statements passed through several governments while missiles are in the air is a rather poor way to avoid accidental war.

But again, there is no evidence Iran has been told to abandon its allies, surrender its weapons programs, or rewrite its entire regional policy.

Those might be demands Israel would like to see, but they aren’t going to get an invite as Iran apparently has here I fancy.

Saudi Arabia’s demands are likely much simpler.

Don’t turn us into the battlefield.

Don’t strike our oil.

Don’t attack commercial ships near our ports.

That isn’t Saudi Arabia becoming an Iranian ally. It’s Saudi Arabia acting in its own interest.

The kingdom is focused on its own survival, not Netanyahu’s imagined map of permanent Israeli dominance.

Saudi Arabia remains close to Washington, but it also works with China, Türkiye, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, and anyone else who might be useful. Perfectly true.

But “diversification” is doing the kind of heavy lifting here that would make a weightlifter cry.

Saudi Arabia is seeking alternatives because the current arrangement hasn’t protected it from the fallout of Israeli and American escalation.

The new agreement supplements American support because it’s no longer seen as enough on its own.

That’s the political equivalent of showing up to a gunfight with a water pistol.

Trump and Netanyahu can keep presenting escalation as a strategy. Saudi Arabia’s behaviour says something far different.

Meanwhile, the countries expected to benefit from their war are quietly working out how to protect themselves-very meaningful security.

Pity about all the actual insecurity, though.

When risks rise around Hormuz and the Red Sea at the same time, costs spread.

Shipping insurance goes up. Oil traders factor in disruption. Companies pay more to move goods. Energy markets react to every new warning, every reported projectile, and every government threatening detention or seizure.

The crew near Yanbu are safe, thankfully.

The next crew might not be.

One misidentified vessel, one poorly judged interception, or one government deciding it needs to show resolve can quickly turn an incident into a major escalation.

This is what Saudi Arabia is trying to avoid.

It’s scrambling for more options because betting everything on Washington has finally proven to be a remarkably bad idea.

As Kissinger said: to be America’s enemy is a bad idea, but to be America’s friend is fatal.

At any rate, Iran hasn’t joined the Mecca agreement quite yet.

The reported invitation might never lead to membership if red lines on both sides can’t be surmounted. The pact itself might remain a political promise with very little actual machinery behind it, there’s scant detail on it as things stand between the three founding states of it.

But the physical and political pressures surrounding this story are already present.

Saudi Arabia built its western oil infrastructure to reduce the danger posed by Hormuz and Middle Eastern instability. Commercial shipping has now been attacked near Yanbu in the Red Sea, demonstrating Saudi issues are on both coasts.

Trump and Netanyahu went to war, claiming Iran could be forced into submission. Tehran still asserts conditions for passage through the Strait.

Iran was supposed to be isolated. Pakistani and Omani officials are travelling to Tehran for regional discussions.

And Saudi Arabia, one of Washington’s closest partners, is building another security framework because American protection has proved insufficient on its own.

Netanyahu wanted a Middle East where Iran was bombed into irrelevance, and Israel got to play regional hall monitor. Instead, he may have helped create a Middle East where Saudi Arabia finally realizes it can’t be secure until Iran is actually part of the conversation. Tehran hasn’t won any membership badges yet, but it’s gained something Netanyahu never intended to give: the chance to be essential to the future of a Middle East being destabilised by Israel, not being made more secure by it. Iran was supposed to be left out in the cold. Thanks to Netanyahu’s idiotic warmongering, someone might just be pulling up a chair for them instead.

For more of Netanyahu’s calamities across the Middle east, do stick with the channel for more, such as this story right here.

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