President Trump has welcomed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan. Signed on 7 August, it combines Saudi financial power, Turkish military capacity and Pakistan's strategic weight. Saudi Arabia's celebration of Trump's statement, amplified on X by the United States Embassy in Riyadh, gives that welcome diplomatic meaning.
The delayed US reaction appears deliberate. More importantly, it leaves regional actors with greater agency. The United States is prepared to delegate greater regional responsibility while remaining the system's central power.
Mecca and the Abraham Accords are therefore not opposing trees. They are two branches of an American alliance structure, distinct enough to compete but connected enough to serve the same strategic trunk.
Branches Compete Without Breaking
The Abraham Accords made normalisation, commerce and state relations one path to regional order. Mecca adds collective defence and greater burden sharing. Washington should neither force them into one institution nor allow their rivalry to become war. It should make each branch compete to produce stability.
Türkiye illustrates why the separation need not become permanent. Its own foreign ministry records that it recognised Israel in 1949. Present rivalry does not erase that history. It leaves room for practical convergence when interests demand it.
The Abraham branch must still grow. The United States National Security Strategy already calls for expanding the accords. Without new members and renewed purpose, it will appear bare while Mecca spreads.
Competition also needs rules. Mecca should be judged by operational coordination, deterrence and whether it reduces demands for American intervention. Abraham should be judged by new normalisation, trade and enforceable peace. If either exports conflict into the other, Washington should restrict access rather than reward obstruction.
Diplomacy Replaces Regional War
This is exactly the peaceful competition the Middle East needs, not more violence and war. The end of the Iran war requires more American diplomacy, because force created pressure but could not construct the settlement. Mecca gives regional powers responsibility for security while the Abraham Accords preserve normalisation as the wider destination.
The same logic applies to Gaza. Washington can lean on one branch when the other obstructs peace, using endorsement, access and diplomatic momentum as pressure. The goal is not to choose a permanent winner. It is to keep competition peaceful and both branches attached to American strategy.
Somaliland Enters With Agency
So what does this mean for Somaliland? Washington should bring it into the Abraham Accords before the November midterms as a quick win for American foreign policy. Israel has already recognised Somaliland, while the UAE describes a deep economic partnership built around Berbera and DP World. Somaliland is the natural next member.
Selected functions now distributed across American facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar could then be assessed for gradual consolidation in Somaliland. Berbera offers Gulf of Aden reach while sitting more than 2,000 kilometres from Iran. This is strategic diversification, not abrupt withdrawal, and it would test whether Mecca can assume more defence responsibility with less direct American protection.
Somaliland should join the Abraham branch without surrendering its agency. It must manage its own relationships with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, pursue realistic Arab diplomacy and find common ground that makes competition healthy. A country with agency does not merely choose a branch. It helps determine how the whole alliance tree responds to genuine common threats.