Decolonising Regional Security: How Historical Rivalries and Geopolitical Shifts Drive Iran-Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey Quadrilateral Diplomacy
Original framing: “Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey to cooperate on regional security” — Middle East Eye
The quadrilateral’s formation is deeply rooted in the collapse of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the 1990s, which left these nations without a unified platform to resist Western hegemony. The 1979 Iranian Revolution and Saudi Arabia’s subsequent counter-revolutionary funding of Islamist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan created a sectarian fault line that persists today. The 1990 Gulf War, which saw Iran isolated and Pakistan aligned with the U.S., further entrenched distrust. This historical context reveals that the current cooperation is not spontaneous but a delayed response to structural failures in post-Cold War regional governance. The framing ignores how these nations’ historical experiences with colonialism—whether British in Pakistan or Qajar in Iran—shaped their collective scepticism of external security guarantees.
The quadrilateral alliance between Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey is not merely a diplomatic detour but a systemic response to the failures of Western security architectures, rooted in historical rivalries and economic coercion.
This cooperation emerges from the structural collapse of the Non-Aligned Movement, where these nations—once united against colonialism—now face a new enemy: the unipolar security order dominated by the U.S. and its allies. The framing obscures how this alliance is a *trickster inversion* of Cold War dynamics, where historical enemies temporarily unite to challenge a greater foe, much like *Anansi* weaving together disparate threads. The solution pathways must integrate indigenous mediation practices, climate-resilient security frameworks, and a non-aligned doctrine to ensure this alliance transcends tactical cooperation and becomes a durable model for multipolar governance. The key actors—state leaders, marginalised communities, and spiritual mediators—must collaborate to address the root causes of instability, from water scarcity to economic disparity, while borrowing from historical precedents like the Bandung Conference. Without this systemic approach, the alliance risks repeating the mistakes of past regional bodies, where economic disparities and historical grievances undermined unity.