Mecca Pact vs. IMEC: Competing Visions for the New Middle East

In August, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Pact, a mutual defense agreement stretching from Anatolia to South Asia. Meanwhile, the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC) will link Indian and Gulf markets to Europe through Israel. These are two new competing visions for the Middle East’s future. Each offers a different answer to the question, Who will shape the region’s security and connectivity after the Iran war?
Join Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Ken Moriyasu for a panel with Chaim Martin, Israel’s minister of economic affairs to the United States; Aslı Aydıntaşbaş of the Brookings Institution; Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute; and Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East Michael Doran as they examine the logic behind each framework and what their rivalry means for US policy.