핵심요약

• 파키스탄, 사우디아라비아, 튀르키예는 8월 7일에 메카 공동 방위 협정을 체결하였습니다.
• 이 협정은 한 국가에 대한 공격이 다른 국가에 대한 공격으로 간주되는 NATO 5조와 유사한 안보 보장을 포함합니다.
• 이 협정은 미국이 주도해 온 중동의 오랜 리더십 역할을 약화시키는 변화를 반영합니다.
• 협정 체결 후 48시간 만에 사우디 아람코 정유 시설에 대한 후티의 공격이 발생하며 안보 보장의 실효성이 시험되었습니다.

도입

본 기사는 중동 지역의 새로운 안보 협정인 메카 협정이 투자자들에게 어떤 의미를 가지는지 분석합니다. 이 협정은 단순히 세 국가 간의 군사적 약속을 넘어, 미국이 수십 년간 주도해 온 중동 지역 질서가 재편되고 있음을 보여주는 지정학적 변화를 반영합니다. 따라서 이 협정은 향후 중동 지역의 안보 환경과 에너지 시장에 미칠 파급 효과를 예측하는 데 중요한 단서가 됩니다.

본문 1: 지정학적 리더십의 재편

메카 협정의 가장 중요한 함의는 중동 지역 질서의 변화입니다. 과거 1970년대부터 미국은 바레인, 이집트, 요르단, 사우디아라비아, 튀르키예 등 다수의 국가를 포괄하는 지역 질서를 이끌어 왔습니다. 이러한 미국의 리더십은 중동의 안보 및 경제 정책 전반에 걸쳐 영향을 미쳤습니다. 그러나 이번 협정은 미국 중심의 구도에서 벗어나 세 아랍 및 터키 국가들이 주도하는 새로운 지역 질서가 형성되고 있음을 시사합니다. 이는 미국이 과거에 누렸던 영향력이 점진적으로 약화되고 있음을 의미하며, 지역 내 다자간 협력의 중요성이 증대되고 있음을 보여줍니다.

본문 2: 안보 보장의 실효성 시험

협정의 내용 자체의 중요성 외에도, 실제 안보 보장의 실효성을 시험하는 사건은 중요한 분석 대상입니다. 협정 체결 후 단 48시간 만에 후티가 사우디 아람코 정유 시설을 공격한 사건은 새로운 안보 약속이 실제 위기 상황에서 어떻게 작동하는지를 보여주는 시험대였습니다. 사우디 지도자들이 새로운 파트너들에게 도움을 요청하지 않은 것은 이 안보 보장의 신뢰성에 대한 의문을 제기합니다. 이는 새로운 안보 협정이 단순히 선언에 그치지 않고, 실제 위협에 대한 공동의 행동으로 이어질 수 있는지에 대한 의구심을 남깁니다. 따라서 협정의 이행력은 실제 위기 상황에서의 상호 신뢰 구축에 달려 있다고 판단됩니다.

본문 3: 지역 안정성과 장기적 전망

이러한 지역 안보 협정은 중동 지역의 장기적인 안정성에 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다. 세 국가 간의 연대 강화는 지역 내 분쟁 발생 시 중재자 역할이나 공동 대응의 가능성을 열어줄 수 있습니다. 그러나 동시에, 이러한 협력이 외부 세력의 개입이나 내부 갈등으로 인해 좌절될 위험도 존재합니다. 장기적으로 볼 때, 이 협정은 지역 내 권력 균형의 변화를 촉진하며, 향후 중동의 에너지 및 지정학적 관계에 새로운 변수를 제공할 것으로 전망됩니다.

결론

메카 협정은 중동 지역의 권력 구도 변화라는 더 큰 지정학적 흐름 속에서 이해되어야 합니다. 이 협정은 미국의 영향력이 축소되는 가운데, 지역 국가들이 자체적인 안보 프레임을 구축하려는 움직임을 보여줍니다. 향후 이 협정의 성공 여부는 실제 위기 상황에서의 상호 신뢰와 실질적인 협력 이행에 달려있으며, 지역 내 역학 관계의 변화를 면밀히 관찰할 필요가 있습니다.

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원문 링크: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMinAFBVV95cUxOcC1CcU1MQWlFVlJWaDI2eEhOOHFGR0lmN19XRnhqcVk2cjltbkxXN0dndk93MlBwWWNQdnZ3d3E2My15Z0lZdDVobkFsSTE4Q1lFMGhlRW1KcktNdXRhU3l4TE4tTnROTXhoNVppMnpVRG9tOEx4ZE56RXN4djluc0htVnhNeHUwcUQ2UktodG5NQng0TmM5R0xwbU0?oc=5

The U.S.-Led Middle East Order Is Over. The Mecca Agreement Proves It. - cfr.org

Steven Cook is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. He is the author of The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East .

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement on August 7. The parties have not released an official text, but reports indicate that the three countries have in essence agreed to a NATO Article 5-like clause—an attack on one signatory would be considered an attack on all of them. That security guarantee is significant as it enjoins Saudi Arabia and Turkey to come to Pakistan’s defense in the event of a war in South Asia, and presumably Saudi and Pakistani forces would join the fight should Israel and Turkey come to blows in Syria or the Eastern Mediterranean.

These commitments were tested only forty-eight hours after the signing ceremony when Ansar Allah (or the Houthis) fired on a Saudi Aramco oil refinery in the southwestern city of Jazan. Although Saudi Arabia has been under consistent fire from the Houthis since July 13, Saudi leaders did not call on their new partners for help. Perhaps this is because they do not believe the Houthi threat is grave. But what is more likely is that, despite the bold announcement of a new security pact, Saudi leaders did not believe that Turkish and Pakistani leaders were eager to join the fight on the Arabian Peninsula.

This does not diminish the Mecca Agreement because its importance does not lie in its security guarantees. Rather, it reflects a change underway in the Middle East’s regional order—one that reduces the United States’ decades long leadership role.

Since the 1970s, the United States has nurtured and led a regional order that has included Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and (de facto) Israel. Other countries, such as Oman and Kuwait, also played unique roles in this regional architecture. These relationships made it relatively easier and less expensive for Washington to pursue its core interests in the Middle East—preventing threats to the free flow of oil, helping to ensure Israeli security, and blocking any country or combination of countries from challenging American primacy in the region.

The United States was generally successful in achieving these goals, even accounting for some notable setbacks like the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which toppled a friendly authoritarian. After the brief disruption of the global oil market and the deep recession it caused in the 1970s, oil was never effectively weaponized again, Israel’s safety was largely assured, and the United States remained the guarantor of regional security. All of this would have been harder—and cost significantly more resources—without the help of Washington’s regional partners.

The high-water mark of this regional order was perhaps thirty-five years ago, when the United States assembled a coalition to defend Saudi Arabia and restore Kuwait’s sovereignty after Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. More recently, the order has been under stress due to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.S. support for protesters during the so-called Arab Spring, the United States’ unwillingness to take significant action to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Washington’s tepid-at-best support for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen’s civil war, President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to come to Saudi Arabia’s direct defense after Iran attacked oil facilities in the Kingdom in 2019, and Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip after the October 7, 2023, attacks. All have placed pressure on this regional order.

After inconclusive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the debate within the U.S. policy community—to which Middle Eastern leaders pay close attention—centered on the questions of withdrawal and retrenchment from the region. The idea that the Middle East was no longer important coincided with the notion that ensuring the flow of energy resources from the region was rapidly becoming a thing of the past. One version of this argument noted the significant increase in domestic oil and gas production, prompting some to suggest that a United States that no longer relied on Middle Eastern energy resources could walk away from the region. Another line of reasoning posited, rather simplistically, that protecting the region’s oil fields was unnecessary as the transition to alternative energy resources proceeded. The first argument conveniently ignored the fact that the energy markets are global and threats to it in one part of the world would still affect U.S. consumers. The second claim vastly underplayed the difficulty of decarbonizing the energy system and society more broadly.

Adding to the dissonance of the 2010s was the unpredictability of the United States, which came in two related varieties. Reflecting the political polarization of the United States, significant and abrupt shifts became a theme of U.S. policy in the region. In 2015, President Barack Obama agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. His successor, Donald Trump, abrogated the nuclear agreement three years later after initially exploring ways to get back into the JCPOA. The United States promoted democracy in the region, then did not, before trying again after the Arab uprisings, and finally giving up on it. A values-forward approach to the region then followed, but this was abandoned when President Joe Biden discovered he needed Egypt’s help in Gaza in 2021 and Saudi Arabia’s flexibility on oil production in 2022. Regional leaders could once count on continuity in U.S. foreign policy, but over the last few decades they have been forced to contend with policy based on “anything but what the previous President did,” regardless of its wisdom.

Trump’s style of diplomacy, which relies on what his gut tells him and keeping his options open, has compounded U.S. unpredictability. As a result, in the ongoing conflict with Iran, the United States has toggled between force, threats of force, and negotiation. Washington’s regional partners often have no advance warning of Trump’s twists and turns and have paid a high price in the form of Iran’s willingness to target them in response to U.S. actions. Trump’s apparent impulsiveness has now left some in the region to wonder whether they will be left in the lurch to face an empowered Iran on their own.

There were moments when it seemed that old, U.S.-led order could be strengthened and developed. The Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE, suggested a way forward. That agreement produced a “minilateral” of the United States, India, Israel, and the UAE that in turn spurred the idea for the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) combined with the (unrealized) Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization. Altogether, this held out the prospect for institutionalizing much of what the United States had been encouraging its regional partners to do over the previous four decades. Hamas’s attack on Israel, Saudi-Emirati tensions over Israel, Sudan, and Yemen, and the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran fractured the region, however.

Fast forward to today, and the Saudis, who have clearly become concerned about the reliability of the United States, are now looking for other options—i.e., the Mecca Agreement. It is not important that the Turks and Pakistanis are unable to bring the kind of military power to bear that the United States possesses. The Saudis and their new security partners are seeking a new order that allows them, not Washington, to shape the region.

For Pakistan and Turkey—both U.S. partners who nevertheless chafe at the exercise of the United States’ power in their parts of the world—the Mecca Agreement enhances their influence in the Gulf at the expense of their own adversaries: India and Israel, respectively. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also has an ideological commitment to this new security pact, given the long-standing Turkish Islamist interest in a “Muslim NATO.” The Saudis and Turks have also gone further, proposing a redirection of the rail link that is part of IMEC. Instead of running from Jordan to Israel and then linking to Europe via Cyprus and Greece, goods would bypass Israel and continue from Saudi Arabia through Jordan and north to Syria and finally Turkey before being transshipped to the Europeans.

The U.S.-aligned regional order could now become a Middle East with two blocs: the countries that remained committed to the Abraham Accords and its alternative, the Mecca Agreement. Previously, regional rivalries and disputes were contained because leaders prioritized their relations with the United States, which was the tie that bound the regional order. Now, with the Pakistanis, Saudis, and Turks moving forward with a vision that competes directly with the Abraham Accords, that no longer seems to be the case.

This is a major change, and it is hard to overstate its significance. After five decades, it is no longer possible to talk about a U.S.-led order in the Middle East.

This work represents the views solely of the author(s). The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMinAFBVV95cUxOcC1CcU1MQWlFVlJWaDI2eEhOOHFGR0lmN19XRnhqcVk2cjltbkxXN0dndk93MlBwWWNQdnZ3d3E2My15Z0lZdDVobkFsSTE4Q1lFMGhlRW1KcktNdXRhU3l4TE4tTnROTXhoNVppMnpVRG9tOEx4ZE56RXN4djluc0htVnhNeHUwcUQ2UktodG5NQng0TmM5R0xwbU0?oc=5