Trump’s Mandatory Abraham Accords are dangerous; Why he pushes it still |
President Trump announced on May 25 that joining the Abraham Accords should be treated as mandatory for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan and linked it directly to any agreement with Iran. The Abraham Accords are rightly regarded as a landmark achievement and expansion at first glance might sound good for Israel. It may not be. The distinction between which elements of Trump’s push genuinely serve Israeli interests and which elements threaten them is the crucial question to ask and the answer requires understanding not just what Trump is proposing, but why.
Why Trump is pushing this now
Reports across multiple international outlets on the draft Iran agreement are frequently contradictory, likely reflecting spin and the ongoing dynamic nature of the talks by the parties to the negotiations. What matters is their convergent pattern: no credible account has suggested the deal would fully dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, end its ballistic missile program, sever its regional proxy network, or establish unrestricted freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the architecture of Iranian regional power largely intact.
In Middle Eastern political culture, compromise by the stronger party on issues it defined as non-negotiable is seen as weakness and weakness emboldens enemies.Iran’s leadership would almost certainly portray surviving the confrontation with the United States as a historic victory, and that narrative would carry regional weight regardless of any agreement’s technical details.
The mandatory Abraham Accords expansion push is most plausibly understood as partly compensatory: by trying to force a sweeping regional diplomatic achievement, the administration attempts to reframe the narrative from a partial Iran deal to a historic transformation of the Middle East. Trump is also deploying the Iran negotiations as active leverage , countries seeking US engagement on Iran are being told they must simultaneously deliver on normalization with Israel. But there is a second motivation, less visible in public commentary, that is arguably more significant for Israel.
On September 17, 2025, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA), it is a formal mutual defense pact treating aggression against one signatory as aggression against both. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif stated two days after signing that the agreement extended Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia, a characterization Saudi officials reinforced by describing the pact as encompassing all available military capabilities. Some subsequent reporting has introduced nuance around the precise scope of that nuclear dimension, and the strategic ambiguity that remains may itself serve the interests of SMDA members regardless of what is formally operative. By January 2026 Turkey was in advanced talks to join thought it hasn’t yet and on April 17, 2026 the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan met at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum to explore combining their strengths on security matters. Qatar’s association was reported in parallel.
Some international media dubbed this formation an Islamic NATO in the making. It captured something real: a mutual defense structure with an implicit nuclear dimension, several members with deep ties to China and Russia, whose consolidation would shift regional influence meaningfully away from........