The geopolitics of the Middle East are shifting, and Saudi Arabia is the prize up for grabs. There are two possible paths forward. One involves the Saudis moving closer to the United States and Israel. The other would align them with Pakistan and Turkey. It's fair to say the future of the region may depend on which path the Saudis choose.
The Kingdom of Saud has always been a land of contradictions—an immensely wealthy country flush with oil but deliberately backward because its leaders opposed modernity. That changed in 2017 with the rise of Mohammed bin Salman, the brash crown prince who vowed to drag his country into the modern age by the year 2030. MBS's Saudi Arabia changed course so dramatically that it was on the cusp of normalization with Israel in 2020. When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, however, the Saudi appetite for stronger ties with Israel and the United States waned. The Biden administration chose to shun MBS due to his involvement in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and it made a public show of distancing the United States from the Saudi effort to quell the threat from the Houthi terrorist group in neighboring Yemen.
Nonetheless, Saudi–Israeli normalization suddenly reemerged as a possibility due to the surprising response of the Kingdom to the Hamas attacks of October 7. In an astonishing development, Saudi Arabia quietly supported Israel's war in Gaza, and the Biden administration believed a diplomatic breakthrough was a real possibility. But its populace was swayed by blood libels and doctored photos, as well as erroneous news stories accusing the Israelis of "genocide" and other horrible crimes against the people of Gaza. The hopes for a revival of the Abraham Accords dimmed.
The momentum shifted again when the Israelis took the war to its source: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Saudi Arabia and Iran are sworn enemies, as they represent different strains of Islamic belief and compete for regional power. Israel's determination to remove Iran's offensive military capabilities made it a natural ally of convenience for Saudi Arabia, and in 2024, Israel and Iran entered into a series of hostile exchanges that showed both Israeli technological aptitude and Iranian battlefield weakness. The advantages of siding with Israel only became clearer in 2025, with Israel's successes in the 12-day war that concluded with the American military strike on Iran's nuclear program. That was followed in turn by the dazzling opening weeks of the 2026 war, featuring joint U.S.-Israeli operations against the Iranian regime.
If MBS wanted to side with a winner, it seemed in the spring of 2026 that the side he would choose was obvious. And it wasn't just about Israel. Normalization with the Jewish state might now fit neatly in a larger and more attractive package called the India Middle East Energy Corridor, or IMEC.
IMEC is an energy alliance with a defensive component. It includes India, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus. If fully implemented, IMEC would connect Indian ports to the Persian Gulf by sea, move cargo and energy across the Arabian Peninsula on the ground, and then ship it from Israel to Europe. All the players here are American allies. IMEC would thus be an innovative expression of a U.S.-aligned regional order.
The Pakistanis, Egyptians, and Turks have another vision. They too want the Saudis on their side, and the failure of the United States to secure a quick victory in the war has provided them with an opportunity to divert Saudi Arabia from the IMEC course. The Pakistan-Egypt-Turkish axis that arose during the war is an effort to coordinate responses, mediate between the United States and Iran, and develop what Turkish officials call "regional ownership." This relatively modest working group has grown more ambitious and widened its scope as the world grapples with Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz and the transshipment of oil.
Together, these three nations are designing proposals to route energy through Syria and Turkey to Europe (rather than through Israel and Greece). Their vision is an alliance of Sunni nations (the Sunnis make up 80 percent of the planet's Muslims, compared with Shia, who make up 20 percent).
In early August, Saudi Arabia entered into a mutual-defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan. This appeared to signal that Riyadh had made its choice and is moving toward a prospective alliance that some analysts have dubbed STEP (Saudi, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan). But does that mean that Saudi Arabia has rejected IMEC? This remains unclear.
So which will it be? IMEC or STEP?
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In July 2021, the Middle East expert Mohammed Soliman wrote of "an Indo-Abrahamic alliance on the rise." This alliance was marked by the Abraham Accords as well as a growing harmonization of interests between India, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates—spurred in part by dissonance between the UAE and Pakistan and a sense that Turkey's ambitions to become a leading power in the region had to be countered. The result, Soliman noted, was "an unlikely and unprecedented...transregional order."
That idea gained traction through a grouping known as I2U2 made up of India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States. Officials from the four governments first met virtually (during the pandemic) in October 2021 but then held a summit in July 2022. It began as a diplomatic framework, and, over the course of the following year, other nations came to see the wisdom of joining. At the time, the issue was how to counter China's so-called Belt and Road Initiative, the ambitious program undertaken by Beijing to interweave itself into the economies of Third World nations across the globe. At the G-20 summit in New Delhi in 2023, the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the European Union, France, Germany, and Italy signed a memorandum of understanding described as "a clear alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative."
These nations (and the EU) had been brought into alignment for different reasons. India's historic hostility toward China was distinct from America's desire to compete with Beijing for great-power status. But that mattered little. The vision for global trade was the same: Cargo would leave Indian ports, cross the Arabian Sea, and unload in the UAE. From there, freight would be transferred to rail and moved through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Israel. In Israel, cargo would reach the port of Haifa and then continue by ship to European ports in Cyprus, Greece, and beyond.
This was only the beginning. The nations that make up IMEC further envisioned that data cables, electricity, and hydrogen would travel along this route.
This is no small undertaking. An Atlantic Council report estimated that it would cost roughly $5 billion to make the concept "minimally operational." Much more work and spending are necessary. But money and logistics may be the least of the challenges.
The war spurred by the Hamas slaughter on October 7, 2023, froze the political process. The viability of the corridor depends on cooperation among Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, the UAE, India, and Europe. The Saudis are not ready to take the plunge without a path toward a Palestinian state, while the Israelis are simply not ready to recognize a Palestinian state at this stage of the game.
Meanwhile, the 2026 war has created a paradox. Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the disruption at Gulf ports, and the rise in insurance and shipping costs have put a dent in IMEC's prospects. And yet, the crisis has undeniably made the case for IMEC's importance.
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Saudi Arabia's leaders understand this paradox. And they understand that IMEC is their best bet for a better Middle East. But their reticence to move forward opened the door for alternative alliance structures with nonaligned players. Here is where STEP comes into play.
Pakistan's unlikely ascension as a regional power during this war remains inexplicable, but ascend it has. One minute it was a basket case without a regional identity. The next, it emerged as one of the Trump administration's top partners to end the Iran war. Never mind that Pakistan was a key enabler of al-Qaeda and the Taliban during America's yearslong effort to bring stability to Afghanistan. Never mind that the country has a long history of illicit proliferation of nuclear know-how. Pakistan's relationships with Iran, China, and other malign actors provided Washington with an interlocutor in the effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the Iranian regime imposed its blockade.
But the Pakistanis are not supporters of U.S. policies in the Middle East. The country's leaders suddenly see an opportunity to shape the region. The weakening and potential collapse of the Iranian regime have created opportunities that are impossible to ignore. And for Sunni powers like Pakistan, the idea of claiming regional dominance at the expense of Iran, a Shiite power, is particularly enticing.
In pursuit of its regional vision, Islamabad enlisted other Sunni powers: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. Pakistan already enjoyed bilateral ties with these states. But the October 7 wars nudged these countries closer together—both out of fear of a regional vacuum that rivals might leverage, and the desire to empower the Sunni bloc while Israel took on the Shia regime in Tehran and its proxies throughout the region.
STEP foreign ministers met for the first time on March 19, 2026, in Riyadh on the sidelines of a gathering of Arab and Islamic diplomats that condemned Iran's attacks on the Arab Gulf states. Less than two weeks later, they convened in Islamabad "to discuss regional de-escalation, amid the U.S.–Israel conflict with Iran." The ministers gathered for a third time in Antalya, Turkey, the following month. Egypt hosted a fourth meeting in June. By then, this grouping was being described as the "Quadrilateral" or "R4."
These four Sunni powers have undeniably forged an important alliance. But they lack a coherent strategy. Interests diverge on many key areas. But it remains a means to coordinate diplomacy and promote Sunni interests in the Muslim world.
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If Pakistan's involvement in STEP is problematic, Turkey's involvement is alarming, pure and simple. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a malign actor in the Middle East for more than two decades. A patron of Hamas, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Erdogan regime has grown increasingly dangerous. Today, its neo-Ottoman aspirations put the country at odds with Israel, Greece, and Cyprus. But its illiberal and anti-democratic policies at home also put it at odds with the West. With the weakening of Iran, Turkey sees opportunities to expand its power in the Middle East at the expense of its regional competitors: the Greeks, the Israelis, and even the Emiratis.
For the other STEP countries, Ankara's "regional ownership" doctrine offers an alternative to IMEC, and an alternative to the American-led vision for the region. Remarkably, this fact has not put any of the participating countries on the wrong side of Donald Trump. Erdogan, in particular, has found a way to maintain not just cordial ties with Donald Trump but a flourishing relationship. This is particularly difficult to fathom, given Erdogan's repeated harsh critiques of Trump's war against Iran.
The Turkish government was, of course, responsible in part for the war that it condemns. The Erdogan government remains a top patron of Hamas, the group that sparked this war. And between 2012 and 2016, the Turkish leadership laundered $20 billion on behalf of the Iranian regime. Undeniably, some of those funds went on to fund the regime's missile and drone programs, not to mention terror proxies.
Ankara's nonaligned foreign policy is precisely what the Erdogan government seeks to pursue alongside the other Sunni powers that remain ambivalent about the American-led world order—even as all four remain in it. For now, STEP affords them a diplomatic construct to pose as American allies while collectively challenging other U.S. allies and systems that do not align with their interests.
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For Saudi Arabia, the combined funding, military might, geographic reach, and diplomatic alliances of STEP are tantalizing. But it is arguably the deepening of ties with Pakistan that is perhaps the most attractive to this weak Gulf power. A strategic mutual-defense agreement signed at Al-Yamamah Palace in September 2025 declared that "any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both." This is, in effect, a Pakistani nuclear umbrella for a country that has barely been able to muster a response to Iranian aggression.
Improved Saudi–Turkish relations are also attractive. The Turks boast the second-largest army in NATO, equipped with arms produced by an indigenous defense industry that is rapidly expanding. The two Sunni powers were on opposite sides during the tumult of the Arab Spring; Turkey wanted to boost the Muslim Brotherhood's rise while Riyadh sought to constrain it. Ties hit a low point after the 2018 murder of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. That all now appears to be in the past. Recent rapprochement between the two countries produced major defense cooperation, including the roughly $3 billion drone deal.
But Turkey is dangling more than that. With the war threatening Persian Gulf shipping lanes and Red Sea traffic alike, Turkey is aggressively promoting itself as an energy hub and a way for Saudi Arabia (and others) to bypass the vulnerable maritime chokepoints of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This includes the "Iraq Development Road," a rail-and-highway link running from the Persian Gulf to Turkish ports via Iraq; and a revived Hejaz Railway, an Ottoman-era line that would carry Gulf cargo to Europe through Syria and Jordan (conspicuously circumventing Israel). Both projects are still notional. But the Hejaz memorandum that Ankara and Riyadh inked in June 2026 suggests that Saudi Arabia is ready to move ahead.
The real value in STEP for Saudi Arabia, however, is the hedge it provides against American inconsistency in the Middle East and beyond. American inaction after Iran's 2018 attack on the Abqaiq oil facility in Saudi Arabia was a wake-up call. Despite long-standing American vows to defend Saudi Arabia in the face of such aggression, the Trump administration did not mount a response. Shaky U.S. ties with the Europeans amid the Russian assault on Ukraine similarly fail to inspire confidence.
The wars since October 7, 2023, have also revealed the limits of American power. Not only has the United States been unable to force an Iranian surrender, but the regime also continues to hammer American bases across the Persian Gulf. Moreover, the regime in Iran has shown a consistent ability to strike Saudi Arabia, not to mention Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and other states. Even when America defends the skies of the Middle East against Iranian drones and missiles, American stocks of defensive weapons dwindle.
Finally, the Saudis are fearful of America's political trajectory. The possibility of an isolationist Republican or a spineless Democrat ascending to the presidency in 2028 is real. There is simply no guarantee that the Saudis will remain in the good graces of American foreign policy in the post-Trump era.
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The Trump administration understands the Saudi conundrum. And it is actively wooing Saudi Arabia on multiple fronts. During Mohammed bin Salman's White House visit on November 18, 2025, Trump announced his intent to designate Saudi Arabia a Major Non-NATO Ally and signed a strategic defense agreement. The administration approved a path toward the purchase of advanced American F-35 aircraft, U.S. tanks, and chips for the advancement of Saudi artificial intelligence.
Then, on July 22, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed a nuclear-cooperation agreement. The Trump administration called the agreement the legal foundation for "a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership." The deal requires congressional review, and lawmakers warned that it could contribute to a regional arms race. Notably, the agreement does not prohibit Saudi enrichment, a central concern because enrichment capability can have both civilian and military implications. One day after signing the agreement, Trump posted that the deal "is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords." Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the agreement was "off" unless Riyadh normalized relations with Israel.
Days later, the Greeks shot down two Iranian missiles over Saudi Arabia. Amid reports of dwindling American missile defense, Athens stepped into the breach. Greek Patriot missile-defense batteries have been stationed in Saudi Arabia since 2021, protecting the Aramco oil company's infrastructure from Houthi threats, but there is now talk of extending what is already one of Greece's longest overseas military commitments.
The Greeks are taking their ties with Riyadh even further. The East-to-Med Data Corridor, a Greek telecom/Saudi joint venture, will link Gulf data hubs to Europe via undersea cable designed to carry more than 180 terabits per second. A parallel three-gigawatt Saudi-Greek electricity interconnection is also planned. The two governments also inked 23 joint initiatives spanning trade, investment, infrastructure, and shipbuilding.
But for every positive step forward, the Saudis continue to step back. The multifront war in the Middle East continues, with false charges of Israeli war crimes leveled almost daily. American resolve continues to waver. And India, a key player in IMEC, has been notably absent from any meaningful effort to curb Iranian aggression. To complicate matters further, a serious rift has emerged between the Saudis and the Emiratis. Once close allies, these two Gulf Arab neighbors now adopt opposing positions on nearly every major issue in the region. With the Emiratis squarely in the U.S.-Israeli alliance, Saudi Arabia is tempted to bolt in the other direction—towards STEP.
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The Saudis are key to the success of IMEC. But more important, between their vast financial resources and religious influence in the wider Muslim world, they are the key to regional stability. Should Riyadh align with Israel, India, Greece, and the UAE, it would not only ensure the facilitation of energy and goods across a crucial geopolitical region. It would solidify a U.S.-led alliance, yield more normalization agreements, boost prosperity, and fortify the defense structures needed to prevent the kinds of wars now playing out across the Middle East.
But the problems raised by the current war loom large. The inability of the United States to secure a victory, let alone defend the skies over Saudi Arabia, has left Riyadh in a perpetual state of doubt. The Turks, Egyptians, and Pakistanis continue to offer an alternative. Only a decisive American victory and an Iranian defeat can put IMEC back on track and pave the way for a new regional order.