- Iranian drone attack on Saudi Arabia may draw Pakistan into Middle East war
- Pact commits Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to joint defense against attacks, nuclear role unclear
- Pakistan's foreign minister warned Iran against attacking Saudi Arabia
The work done by a small Iranian suicide drone in Saudi Arabia may draw Pakistan, a country thousands of kilometres away, to the war in the Middle East.
The question is, would Pakistan make good on an agreement it signed with Saudi Arabia in September 2025 that would consider an attack on either of the two as an attack on both?
Pakistan's answer to this almost existential question would decide the future because the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) with Saudi provides for a joint, coordinated counterattack - with no clear explanation on whether it would include nuclear weapons.
A rough picture of what's in Pakistan's mind could be guessed from its Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar's message to his Iranian counterpart against attacking Saudi Arabia.
"I made them (Iran) understand that we have a defence agreement," Dar said on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported, in what became the first open admission by Pakistan of its intent amid the US-Israel joint strikes on Iran.
The most controversial part of the SMDA is the suspicion that the agreement may have allowed Pakistan to extend its nuclear umbrella to protect Saudi Arabia. What it means is that the nuclear-armed Muslim country has linked up with the Gulf's richest nation and in doing so, has exposed itself to the uncertainties of geopolitical flareups.
It has been theorised that Riyadh began looking for more partners for its protection after Israel launched airstrikes on Doha and Qatar in September 2025, casting doubt on the US's ability to keep the Gulf secure.
Analysts are more inclined toward the probability that Pakistan won't join the war in the Middle East, but politically it will add firepower to Saudi's diplomatic moves because of the SMDA.
For now, the Pakistani foreign minister has only given a warning. He did not confirm his country would fight for Saudi Arabia.
A problem that remains in the background - the elephant in the room - that the SMDA undermines both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the humanitarian logic behind the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which categorically rejects the legitimacy of nuclear weapons under any security framework.
For its part, Pakistan has not officially said it has extended nuclear protection to Saudi Arabia.
Yet the context and subsequent comments have inevitably raised the question: has Pakistan, for the first time, effectively extended a nuclear umbrella to a non-nuclear ally - and what precedent does that set?
A report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) cited analysts at London-based think tank Chatham House who warned that the pact "sets a precedent for extended deterrence" by the nuclear-armed Pakistan outside the NPT, despite no direct reference to nuclear weapons.
