Pakistan "Played a Blinder" and Checkmated Israel and Iran, Says Maajid Nawaz

Maajid Nawaz, the counter-extremism campaigner who co-founded Quilliam, has said Pakistan "played a blinder" by building a joint defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and that its nuclear deterrent has "checkmated" both Israel and Iran.

"Pakistan played a blinder with this move. Saudi Arabia provides the financial backing. Turkey provides the second largest military in NATO," Nawaz told Aisha Ali-Khan and Dan Qayyum on Playbook Live, The Pakistan Playbook's video podcast. "Pakistan's nuclear capability immediately neutralises Israel's. It has checkmated the Iranians and it has checkmated the Israelis."

The Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement was signed in Mecca on 7 August by President Erdogan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. It extended the defence agreement Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed in September 2025. Under the pact, an armed attack on any of the three is treated as an attack on all. Its published terms make no reference to nuclear weapons. On 5 October the three governments activated deterrence measures for the first time, after Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, and agreed to deploy forces to the kingdom.

The Crown Prince had urged Trump to strike the Houthis in September. Nawaz said Washington held back so that the pact could act. "Trump stood back deliberately to allow for the Muslim NATO to kick in there."

The Doors And The Club

"There's no point me saying, I permit you to enter my club, if I don't control the doors," Nawaz said. "If I control the doors, I control the club."

He predicted that after Israel's election and the US midterms, Washington and the Muslim-majority states in Trump's Gaza Board of Peace would round on Israel together. Pakistan joined the board this year. "I am fully expecting in our lifetimes to see peace in the Middle East," he said, "and actually a stable and rising Middle Eastern power led by a Sunni Muslim majority bloc akin to the EU."

He described Trump as a president chasing a legacy as a peacemaker. "Trump is being portrayed as a war hawk in the media, but actually is a peacemaker. And the Pakistani state has recognised that in Trump." Pakistan nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025.

Do Not Write Off Netanyahu

Nawaz spoke before Israel's 27 October election, when polls had Gadi Eisenkot ahead. "Netanyahu, first of all, is a survivor politically," he said. "I would caution at this stage of writing off Netanyahu."

With nearly all votes counted, Netanyahu's bloc stood at 53 seats and Eisenkot's at 48, both short of the 61 needed for a majority. Netanyahu has claimed a "decisive majority" among the Zionist public and says he will form a right-wing government.

Nawaz said the result matters less than the mood of the country. "Israeli society has become radicalised. Israeli society as a whole has hardened to the idea of making peace. That's the bigger problem than who wins."

Exported From The West

Nawaz joined Hizb ut-Tahrir as a teenager in Essex. In 1999 he was among the first British Pakistanis to travel to Pakistan to establish the group there. "Most extremism, in the sense of Islamist ideology, was exported to Pakistan from the West," he said.

Pakistan banned Hizb ut-Tahrir in 2003. Britain proscribed it in January 2024. Nawaz put the delay down to the British establishment's view of such groups as useful. "The British security establishment for a long time had many advocates who saw utility in preserving the organisational presence of these Islamist organisations in order to exploit them, weaponise them, or use them for foreign policy objectives." He compared it to American support for the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union.

He left the group in 2007, a year after his release from prison in Egypt. "I lost all of my social circle. My marriage fell apart."

The Monster Labour Fed

Nawaz said Labour's losses to the Greens and to independent candidates standing on Gaza were the price of years of tolerating Islamist and fundamentalist politics. "They are being devoured by the very monster that they fed."

He cited Wes Streeting's narrow win in Ilford North over the independent candidate Leanne Mohamad, putting the margin at around 50 votes. The 2024 result gave Streeting a majority of 528.

He said Gaza had not produced the wave of terrorism in Britain that followed the Iraq war. "Despite the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, we have not seen a mass upsurge in terrorism in Britain as we did after the invasion of Iraq. And that tells you something." He described Sunni jihadism as past its peak. "Still hurts your head, you still need aspirin, but you're no longer drunk." Iranian-backed groups, he said, are the exception. "On the Shia side, they're still drunk."

The Dawa Bros

Nawaz has joined GB News to host a weekly show. He said his targets are two groups that feed each other: European ethno-nationalists calling for the deportation of Muslims, and the online preachers he calls "Dawa bros". "The ethno-nationalists who believe Muslims don't belong in the West, and these Dawa bros who believe that Muslims don't belong in the West as well. They actually all say the same thing really."

Bottom Line

The Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement has been active since 5 October, with Pakistani and Turkish forces committed to Saudi Arabia. Nawaz places Pakistan's deterrent at the centre of any regional settlement. Israel's election has produced no majority, and Netanyahu is working to form a government.

What To Watch

President Herzog's consultations with the new Knesset factions and his choice of who will try to form a government. The scale and makeup of the Pakistani and Turkish deployments to Saudi Arabia. The US midterm elections on 3 November. The launch date of Nawaz's GB News show.

The Pakistan Playbook will continue to report on the Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement and Pakistan's role in the region. ■