His Majesty's plunder: The royal machine behind the Trump Highway and Western Sahara's phosphate wealth

Trump's naming of a highway in occupied Western Sahara exposes the network of political, economic, and royal interests linking Morocco, Israel, and the US through phosphate, trade, and occupation.

The Cradle's N. Africa Correspondent

There is a machine in the Sahara you can see from space. A conveyor belt, the longest on earth, nearly one hundred kilometers of steel from a mine called Bou Craa to the Atlantic. For half a century it has moved phosphate out of occupied Western Sahara, through wars, ceasefires, and a promised referendum that never came. The richest layer of the deposit is already gone, sold before the Sahrawis could ever vote on it. And the electricity that keeps the belt running is sold to the state by a wind farm belonging to the king.

On 26 July, US President Donald Trump announced that the highway running past this machine now carries his name. The announcement arrived as a four-minute Truth Social video, narrated by an obvious AI voice praising his “historic courage.” Rabat, six days on, has not said the name out loud. It does not need to. The name was never the payment.

The road is. It is 1,055 kilometers of settlement poured across Africa's last colony, the kind of road empires have always built and named for themselves. It connects the mine, the port, an Israeli-held offshore block, and the duty-free fertilizer now sailing for New Orleans under an emergency Washington manufactured itself. Follow it far enough and the asphalt runs from phosphate to palace.

An occupation, bought in installments

Every payment has a paper trail, and this one begins five years before the name. The convention that built the road was signed in the presence of Moroccan King Mohammed VI in El-Aaiun (also known as Laayoune) in 2015, on the 40th anniversary of the Green March, at a cost of 10 billion Moroccan dirhams (MAD) – or around $1.074 billion. Morocco poured its annexation in asphalt, as empires always have, long before Washington blessed it. What arrived in December 2020 was not the road. It was the signature.

Morocco became the fourth Arab state to normalize relations with the occupation state, and in exchange the US recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the whole of Western Sahara. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, negotiated the deal and supplied the doctrine, likening the Sahara recognition to Trump's recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights. One occupation legitimized on the template of another. The architect said it so no analyst has to.

Tel Aviv paid its own installment in July 2023, when Netanyahu sent Mohammed VI a letter recognizing the Moroccan claim. A senior Moroccan official explained what the letter was for – Rabat expects the recognition to encourage Israeli investment in the territory. Recognition as prospectus. This is trans-Zionism as designed: the occupation state sets the template, Washington executes, the client kingdom collects.

What the road runs past

South of El-Aaiun, the machine comes back into view. The Bou Craa mine feeds its conveyor belt to the harbor at El-Aaiun, where bulk vessels have carried the territory's wealth abroad since 1975. According to the figures of the world's largest phosphate and fertilizer producer, Morocco's OCP Group, Bou Craa delivers around a fifth of the company's exports from just eight percent of its extracted volume. That is what occupations are for.

The quality tells its own story. Bou Craa's deposit sits in two layers, and Western Sahara Resource Watch, which tracks every bulk shipment out of El-Aaiun, documented that Morocco has practically sold off the high-grade layer that should have been available to the Sahrawi people, mining the poorer second seam since 2014. What remains is the residue.

None of this is legally ambiguous. The UN's legal counsel concluded in 2002 that further exploitation of the territory's resources against the wishes of its people would violate international law. A South African court ruled in 2018 that ownership of a phosphate cargo from El-Aaiun was never lawfully vested in OCP at all. The company ships stolen goods. A court has said so. The road Trump wants his name on is the overland artery of that trade.

An emergency of Washington's own making

The American market took the long way round. In 2021, Washington slapped a 19.97 percent countervailing duty on OCP after Florida's Mosaic Company complained of subsidized competition. The rate yo-yoed for five years until a trade court cut it to 2.11 percent in December 2025 and Washington quietly dropped its appeal. Then came the war.

Washington's strikes on Iran choked the Strait of Hormuz, the artery for roughly a third of the world's seaborne fertilizer trade. Prices climbed, farmers rationed, and on 29 June Trump declared a national emergency under a Depression-era clause of the 1930 Tariff Act, suspending the duties entirely. The suspension is time-bound, not volume-bound: a USDA official confirmed OCP can ship unlimited tonnage for eight months. Washington set fire to the supply chain, declared an emergency over the smoke, and handed the normalization partner the keys to the American market.

Now examine what sails in. North African sedimentary phosphate is naturally high in cadmium, a carcinogen the EU capped at 60 milligrams per kilo in its fertilizers. OCP's response was to lobby against the cap, hiring Dechert LLP and Edelman and proposing Brussels raise the limit to 80. The US has no comparable federal ceiling, leaving oversight to a patchwork of state rules. Europe's restricted rock has found a market with no thermostat. American capital wasted no time: two weeks after the proclamation, US-based firm Koch Ag signed a joint venture stake in OCP's fertilizer complex at Jorf Lasfar. The same conglomerate poured half a billion dollars into the occupation state's tech sector through its investment arm Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), built under Eli Groner, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former top civil servant, settled in the occupied West Bank.

From phosphate to palace

Tracing the flow of revenue shows that it extends beyond the state treasury. OCP belongs to the Moroccan state. But the throne sits atop a parallel structure: the royal family controls roughly 60 percent of the Al-Mada conglomerate through personal holdings named SIGER and ERGIS, both derived from regis, Latin for king, feeding a fund in which Mohammed VI holds 50.6 percent. SIGER's director, Mounir Majidi, is also the king's private secretary: one man running the head of state's office and the family vault.

Al-Mada's energy arm, Nareva, is where the phosphate money turns royal. The wind farm at Foum el-Oued, built by a wholly-owned Nareva subsidiary, supplies nearly all the electricity OCP needs to mine Bou Craa, run the conveyor belt, and wash the rock for export. The state plunders the phosphate. The king sells the state the power that does the plundering. Every tonne leaving El-Aaiun has burned royal electricity first. All but one wind farm in the occupied territory sits in Nareva's portfolio, and WSRW poses the question that answers itself: why would a king who profits from occupation ever back a UN peace process?

Moroccan outlet Barlamane reported that quantities invoiced on the expressway far exceeded the work actually built, prompting the equipment minister to bar the implicated survey bureau from public contracts for five years. On the road to Dakhla, even the overcharging is infrastructure.

The name was never the payment

Empires have always paved roads through conquered land and called it civilization. Rome did it, France did it in this same desert, and in July 2026 the tradition produced its densest month yet: duty-free phosphate sailing for New Orleans, Kosh Ag signing into Jorf Lasfar, and an American president naming a highway across a territory that was never Morocco's to give. The belt at Bou Craa keeps turning, the royal turbines keep spinning, the receipts keep printing – and the only thing Rabat has still not done is say the name out loud.

Iraq’s Weapons Restriction: A Project with Aspects beyond Simply Disarming Resistance Groups

Alwaght- The new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Ali al-Zaydi has put restriction of weapons to the state at the top of its security and political agenda, an approach that on the surface may seem to be aimed at ending armed activities outside the umbrella of the official institutions, but its real aspects go beyond the issue of arms of the resistance groups and even the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

What over the past years came as election campaign rhetoric and a political principle now has entered the execution stage. Al-Zaydi made it clear that the government should hold the monopoly of use of arms. In a op-ed he published on The Washington Post in July, he highlighted his government's commitment to realization of this goal. He said that in the first 60 days of his government, he took measures to disarm a number of militias and to prepare the ground for their integration into the regular army.

This approach showed itself in the presented official government plan, where it stresses on reforming security structure, restricting arms to state institutions, and increasing capabilities of the security forces of the country.

However, the restriction of arms in Iraq should not be reduced to handover of arms or integration of armed groups into the army. Iraq today is one of the most armed societies in the region and arms are distributed in various levels; from the regular army and federal forces to the PMF to the Kurdistan region's Peshmerga paramilitary forces, to armed groups affiliated with political factions and tribes.

From this perspective, al-Zaydi government's project is not a simple operation for disarming a number of armed groups, but an effort to redefine the relation of the government with the society, tribes, Kurdistan region, and armed forces in Iraq, a process that can prove to be one of the most complex political and security challenges of the new government.

Iraq, a society immersed in weapons

One of the most critical dimensions of this crisis is the sheer volume of civilian firearms across Iraq. In July 2024, the interior ministry put the number at roughly 15 million weapons in the hands of citizens. To get a grip on the situation, the ministry has started registering illegal arms while simultaneously clamping down on gun sales.

On December 24, 2024, Miqdad Miri, the interior ministry spokesman, announced the launch of a campaign to register illegal weapons. The initiative is being carried out under the country's 2017 firearms Law No. 51, and aligns with the government's broader agenda to maintain stability and ensure citizen security.

Under that law, married Iraqi citizens are permitted to own one small firearm or pistol, along with a limited cache of ammunition: 50 rounds for handguns and 200 rounds for other types of weapons.

According to Al Jazeera, the US is the primary arms supplier to Iraq, accounting for 41 percent of its military imports. Over the past five years, South Korea has also ranked as Iraq's third-largest weapons provider, and between 2017 and 2021, Iraq was the world's 11th-largest arms importer.

But various estimates suggest the true scale of the problem may be even larger than the interior ministry's figures indicate. The Iraqi Center for Strategic Studies puts the number of unlicensed firearms in the country at more than 20 million, a figure that, if accurate, points to an unprecedented depth of weapon proliferation in Iraqi society.

Meanwhile, one of the most respected international benchmarks comes from the Small Arms Survey. In its 2017 data, the organization estimated that Iraqi civilians held roughly 7.59 million firearms, or about 19.6 guns per 100 people.

Indeed, this figure does not mean that 19.6 percent of Iraqi population have arms, rather, it simply reflects the approximate ratio of civilian firearms to the total population. Still, even that estimate lays bare a crucial reality: the gun problem in Iraq extends far beyond organized militant groups. It is deeply embedded in everyday civilian life.

In other words, even if the government manages to disarm all of the organized armed groups, it still has to cope with a society where weapons are part of its security, social, and even cultural interactions.

Legacy of 2003 invasion: How was Iraq armed? 

The roots to this current challenge should be traced back to contemporary history of Iraq. The Iraqi-Iranian war, Persian Gulf War, 1990s sanctions, collapse of Saddam's dictatorship in 2003, dissolution of Iraqi army post-occupation, collapse of the security structures, rise of rebel groups, sectarian clashes, and then emergence of foreign-backed ISIS terrorist organization all helped weapons proliferation in the Iraqi society. 

After fall of Ba'athist rule, a considerable part of weapons of the army in stockpiles were sold out to the groups and ordinary citizens. The security vacuum catalized by army dissolution intensified this crisis.

In the years that followed, the rise of armed groups, sectarian bloodshed, and then the war against ISIS transformed weapons into something far more than tools of combat, they became embedded in the very fabric of individual and collective security.

For a significant segment of Iraqi society, possessing a firearm is not automatically viewed as a legal infraction. Rather, it is seen as a means of defending one's family, tribe, and property.

Iraqi political and tribal figures have underscored this reality. Adnan al-Danboub, a politician and tribal leader, has attributed the high rates of arms ownership directly to decades of war and instability, emphasizing that in parts of Iraqi culture, the gun is intertwined with notions of power, honor, and personal safety.

This reality poses a fundamental challenge to any disarmament initiative: before the state can take away people's weapons, it must first earn their trust that it can keep them safe.

Tribes, the missing part of weapons restriction project 

Another fundamental challenge for the state is the question of weapons among the tribes.

Iraq, by virtue of its social and historical fabric, is one of the Arab countries with extensive tribal networks. In many regions, tribes continue to play a pivotal role in dispute resolution, local security, and social affairs. This structure, combined with the historical weakness of state institutions, has turned arms into an integral part of power dynamics within some tribal communities.

Tribal clashes in recent years, particularly in the southern provinces of Basra and Dhi Qar, have become a serious security headache. Maysan, Diwaniyah, Babel, Wasit, and even parts of Baghdad have also witnessed such flare-ups.

According to data from Iraq's Interior Ministry, in 2020 and 2021 alone, some 74 tribal conflicts and nearly 234 tribal attacks were recorded across the country. Basra topped the list.

Some of these clashes go well beyond small arms. Riyadh al-Ali, a security expert, has reported the presence of Russian, American, and Iranian machine guns among certain tribes, along with medium-caliber weapons and even anti-aircraft guns. Since 2003, he says, some tribes have gotten their hands on mortars, RPGs, sniper rifles, and various types of ammunition.

While judicial and security crackdowns on tribal conflicts have intensified in recent years, with Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council in some cases prosecuting such acts under anti-terrorism laws, the sheer scale of weaponry in tribal hands underscores a deeper truth: any bid by the state to monopolize the use of force will require confronting deeply entrenched social structures.

Peshmerga, the more complex challenge

If the armed groups and civilian arms are the top challenge of Baghdad government, Peshmerga forces might be the second and the most complicated challenge of the weapons restriction project.

Here, the issue is not just disarming an armed force, but is the Iraqi constitution and the relation between the Baghdad-based federal government and the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Iraq's constitution grants the Kurdish region considerable authority over internal security. Article 121 recognizes the region's right to establish and organize internal security forces, including its own guard forces.

Kurdish officials, for their part, insist that the Peshmerga are a legitimate and official force, and argue that the federal government should play a role in arming, training, and funding them.

The complication lies in history. The Peshmerga structure has long been closely tied to the two main Kurdish political parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). 

In recent years, the Kurdistan Regional Government has sought to unify the Peshmerga under a single "Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs", streamlining their administrative, financial, and organizational structures. But party-affiliated command structures still weigh heavily on how these forces are organized.

Estimates published in 2026 put the number of Peshmerga fighters at over 150,000. According to a report by the KurdFile research team, some 3 million weapons are in the hands of Kurds in the region.

Such figures make clear that integrating or unifying these forces is far more than an administrative exercise, it cuts straight to the power balance between Baghdad and Erbil, and to the internal dynamics among Kurdish parties.

If al-Zaydi's vision of "monopolizing arms" means bringing all of Iraq's armed forces under direct Baghdad command, he will face a formidable legal and political roadblock.

The core question is this: should the Peshmerga be accepted as part of Iraq's legitimate security architecture, or will Baghdad insist on full command and control being transferred to the federal government?

The answer could determine the fate of the entire disarmament project.

It is not just the PMF

In this context, reducing the new Iraqi government's project to simply "disarming resistance factions" would offer a deeply incomplete picture of reality.

Even if Baghdad manages to strike a deal with politically aligned armed groups and absorb some of their fighters into official security structures, several other layers of the arms problem would remain: privately owned weapons, armed tribes, the Peshmerga forces, political parties with military wings, and local armed social networks.

Nor is this issue confined to the PMF. The PMF is already legally recognized as part of Iraq's national security apparatus, so for many of its component groups, the core question is not simply the existence of weapons but rather the chain of command, operational independence, and degree of compliance with the central government's authority.

Ultimately, the concept of "monopolizing arms" in Iraq must be disentangled from the simpler notion of "handing over weapons." The state may succeed in collecting a group's firearms, but if that same group retains its political network, organizational structure, financial resources, and independent command, the broader challenge of a true monopoly on force will remain unresolved.

Failure of weapons registration campaign signals a deeper problem

The experience of registering illegal weapons has laid bare another obstacle: a glaring deficit of public trust in the state.

Iraq's interior ministry has rolled out a registration process for unlicensed firearms and taken steps to curb illicit sales, aiming to get a grip on the vast arsenal in civilian hands. But according to Iraqi media reports, turnout has been abysmal, despite incentives offered for citizens to sign up through online platforms or in-person branches.

The Baghdad-based newspaper Al-Mada has reported that public participation in the campaign remains well below government targets, with many citizens unwilling to register their weapons or sell them back to the state.

This resistance cannot be chalked up simply to a disregard for the law. In parts of Iraqi society, years of turmoil have turned the firearm into a kind of personal security insurance.

A citizen who lived through the 2003 collapse of the state, the sectarian bloodbath, the rise of ISIS, and the repeated failures of security forces is unlikely to surrender their only means of self-defense, even in relatively calm times, unless they are fully convinced that the state can protect them, their family, and their property when crisis strikes.

Seen through that lens, the low enrollment in the weapons registration plan is not merely an administrative failure. It is a telling symptom of the trust deficit between the state and the society it seeks to govern.

Project that can change Iraq's political structure

Al-Zaydi's government now faces a historic choice. If the goal is merely to reduce the number of armed groups, then striking deals with political factions and absorbing their fighters into state structures could go a long way.

But if the true objective, as the government has declared, is to achieve a " restriction of arms to the state" in the hands of the state, then Baghdad will have to contend with a far broader cast of actors: armed factions, the PMF, the Kurdistan Region, the Peshmerga, tribes, weapons dealers, and millions of armed citizens.

This process would also require redefining the central government's relationship with the Kurdish region, recalibrating the ties between political forces and security institutions, overhauling the licensing system for firearms, strengthening police and military capabilities, and, above all, building public confidence in the state's ability to provide security.

Seen in this light, the monopoly on arms in Iraq is less a narrow security project than an ambitious bid to rebuild state authority.

What the Iraqi government is really attempting is a redefinition of a structure forged over more than two decades of war, instability, institutional collapse, and political strife. And that very ambition means that the success or failure of this plan will not hinge solely on Baghdad's ability to negotiate with armed groups.

If the government fails to adequately ensure security, justice, and public services, the citizens will still have reasons to keep their weapons. If Baghdad wants to restrict military powers of the Kurdistan forces without an inclusive political deal, it can turn into a federal tension. And If the plan focuses solely on the resistance factions, it will essentially overlook a vast swath of Iraq's armed reality.

Mecca Agreement: Seeking Security in Mirage of a Sunni Bloc

Alwaght- While Yemeni Ansarullah's drone and missile attacks have once again put Saudi Arabia in one of its most sensitive security times, in the holy city of Mecca in a location that was picked targeted and symbolic, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif signed "Mecca Joint Defense Agreement."

In a joint statement issued after the three countries signed the agreement, they confirmed that the pact was concluded with the aim of "strengthening collective deterrence against any aggression," explicitly stating that an armed attack on any one of the three nations would be considered an attack on all.

The statement added that the agreement "reflects the three countries' commitment to enhancing mutual security and achieving security, peace, and stability in the region and the world," and pertains to the "development of all aspects of defense cooperation" among them.

The agreement, which instantly made headlines across regional and global media, has been framed by analysts as Riyadh's bid to forge a new security framework with two major powers of the Muslim world. Though official details have yet to be released, the central question remains here: Will Saudi Arabia this time succeed in filling its security vacuum, or will this initiative meet the same fate as its predecessors?

What do reports say about Mecca agreement?

Media outlets suggest that the trilateral agreement is aimed at coordinating in the Red Sea, countering the threats of Yemen's Ansarullah movement, beefing up defense ties, and discussing a framework for trilateral security cooperation.

Some political anslysts suggest that after failure of past military coalitions, Saudi Arabia is eyeing a more limited and more cohesive bloc of three states with various capacities. Saudi Arabia with its financial strength, Pakistani with its military and nuclear capacity, and Turkey with its defense industries and operational capabilities fit this bloc.

Why Mecca?

One notable detail is the choice of Mecca as the venue for the talks, and the possible naming of the accord after the holy city. Diplomatically, the selection stands out as unusual; most of Saudi Arabia's major agreements with foreign governments have been signed in Riyadh or Jeddah, from Yemen war-related deals to the 2019 regional accord with the UAE known as the "Riyadh Agreement," and even the 2025 security pact with Pakistan.

So, it seems that picking Mecca as the venue for the deal is not accidental or ceremonial. Riyadh tries to sell this initiative not just as a security deal but a sign of convergence of the most important Sunni powers. In such a narrative, confrontation with Sana'a and Tehran shifts from a geopolitical dispute with regional conflict laced with discursive, identity-based, and even sectarian overtones, a discourse that for years has made part of Saudi security rhetoric. But field realities of the region have always proven more complicated than such binary framings.

Erdogan's motivation behind coalition making with Saudi Arabia 

Turkey's entry into such a project cannot be reduced to security calculations alone. Its economy remains hobbled by double-digit inflation, a crumbling lira, and a desperate need for foreign capital, and the Persian Gulf monarchies, particularly Saudi Arabia, are among Ankara's most critical sources of funding.

But Erdogan has a broader ambition, which is anchoring Turkey as a decisive force in shaping the region's emerging order. By positioning Ankara as a security patron to Riyadh, a capital that already casts itself as the big brother of the Arab world, Turkey could bolster its standing across Arab political dynamics. This is especially timely given the fundamental shift in Syria after Bashar al-Assad's fall, which has revived Ankara's influence in Arab geography and ushered in a new phase of competition for leadership of the Muslim world.

Beyond politics, the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait hold serious economic and geopolitical weight for Turkey. A significant portion of its trade with Africa, and its access to areas of influence in the Horn of Africa, flows through this maritime corridor. Continued insecurity along that waterway directly threatens Ankara's economic and strategic interests.

Nor can Turkey's unease over its future trajectory with Israeli regime be overlooked. In recent years, Israeli security circles have repeatedly flagged Turkey as the region's most formidable rival after Iran, with Israeli officials steadily expanding their anti-Turkish network of influence and coalition-building in neighboring regions, from Central Asia and the Caucasus to the Eastern Mediterranean. Seen through that lens, tightening ties with Saudi Arabia may be part of Ankara's broader strategy to deepen its strategic depth as it braces for future dynamics. 

Is Pakistan a linking ring?

Pakistan may be the most important corner of this triangle. Over decades, Islamabad has maintained its strategic ties with Riyadh and at the same time established close ties with Turkey. This position gives some political analysts a reason to label Pakistan the likely linking ring between Riyadh and Ankara.

But last year's experience raises uncomfortable questions. The defense and nuclear cooperation pact signed between Riyadh and Islamabad was supposed to boost Saudi deterrence and send a clear message that any threat to the Arab kingdom would draw a response from its allies.

Yet neither during the Strait of Hormuz crisis nor in the current wave of Houthi naval attacks on Saudi targets did Pakistan deliver the security role Riyadh had counted on. Islamabad, weighed down by domestic pressures, its own ties with Iran, economic constraints, and a deep reluctance to wade directly into regional conflicts, chose to sit out any active military role.

Can Turkey fill Pakistan's place?

This is the question now looming in the front of Riyadh. Just contrary to Pakistan, Turkey has substantial operational experience and the capability to export military equipment, but is it ready to make Saudi security part of its strategic responsibilities?

The reality is twofold. First, for all of Saudi Arabia's staggering $80 billion annual defense budget, which is unmatched in the region, and its unrestricted access to Western arsenals (including THAAD and Patriot systems, advanced fourth- and fourth-generation-plus American and European fighter jets, interceptor missiles, and more), Turkey simply does not offer the kind of military capability that would fundamentally alter the battlefield equation for Riyadh. Even Ankara, with its own defense industry, cannot match that level of Western firepower.

Second, the cost of such a commitment for Ankara would be prohibitively high. Direct confrontation with the Houthis, or an openly aligned posture against Iran, could expand the threat landscape against Turkish interests across the Red Sea, Iraq, Syria, and even the Caucasus. On top of that, Turkish public opinion would largely welcome such an alliance only if it were framed against Israeli regime as an occupational force and its regional destabilization, not against the oppressed, Palestine-supporting people of Yemen.

Challenges of the pact: Why is it not easy to implement? 

Even with both sides emphasizing mutual defense guarantees, the Mecca agreement faces serious obstacles to implementation.

First, the historic rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Turkey over leadership of the Muslim world remains unresolved. Disputes over the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar crisis, the Syria and Libya cases, and even the Jamal Khashoggi assassination by Saudi Arabia in Turkey in 2018 have shown that mistrust between the two capitals does not simply dissolve with a few economic deals.

Second, Pakistan has little appetite for sacrificing its balanced relationship with Iran at the altar of an anti-Tehran coalition. Beyond sharing a long border with Iran, Islamabad grapples with multiple security and economic challenges, and joining a new security bloc could impose heavy costs on the country.

Third, Saudi Arabia's primary vulnerability is not a shortage of military partners but the shifting nature of warfare in the region. Recent experience has shown that financial muscle and advanced hardware do not necessarily translate into the ability to protect critical infrastructure against asymmetric warfare. Ansarullah's strikes on oil facilities, naval blockades, and pressure on shipping lanes are case in point.

Ultimately, even if the three countries reach consensus on broad principles of cooperation, transforming that understanding into an effective defense pact would require defining a shared threat, establishing a unified command structure, allocating security costs, and accepting mutual military commitments, all of which seem exceedingly difficult given the strategic differences, divergent priorities, and geopolitical rivalries among Riyadh, Ankara, and Islamabad.

For all these reasons, the Mecca agreement for now looks less like the birth of a new Islamic NATO and more like a political signal, a show of convergence in the face of regional security crises. And whether that show translates into action on the ground remains very much in doubt.

The Three Shirts. The Garments We Wear in Life.

By Salim Mohamed Badat

When an Ordinary Garment Becomes a Sign

Every so often, a message arrives on WhatsApp that does more than inform, it awakens the heart.

Recently, I came across a reflection on the three shirts mentioned in Surah Yusuf. I do not know who first penned those thoughts, but they stirred something deep within me.

I have read Surah Yusuf countless times over the years, yet I had never paused to consider that Allah, in narrating what He Himself calls “Ahsan al-Qasas” “the best of stories” (Quran 12:3) , would repeatedly direct our attention to something so ordinary, so familiar, so human: a shirt.

Not a throne. Not a sword. Not a crown.

A shirt. In the Hands of Allah, even an ordinary garment becomes a witness to the unfolding of Divine wisdom.

The First Shirt: The Garment of Betrayal

The first shirt appears in silence and sorrow. It returns to a father whose eyes searched the horizon for a beloved son. It is presented as evidence, stained with blood that never belonged to Yusuf.

Allah says: “And they brought his shirt with false blood upon it.” (Quran 12:18)

The blood was false. The grief was real.

How many of us have worn that first shirt? Perhaps not upon our shoulders, but upon our hearts.

It is the garment of betrayal. It is the pain of discovering that those closest to us are sometimes capable of hurting us most deeply. It is the wound left by broken trust, by slander, by rejection, by whispered lies and silent abandonment.

When Blood Tells a False Story

Some wounds are inflicted by strangers. The deepest ones often come from those we once called family, friends, or companions.

Yet what appeared to be the end of Yusuf’s story was only the opening page.

How often do we mistake the first chapter for the final one?

Years pass. The boy becomes a man. The prisoner becomes a servant of Allah whose dignity cannot be imprisoned.

Temptation comes clothed in beauty, yet Yusuf chooses his Lord over his desires.

As he flees, another shirt enters the story.

Allah says: “And she tore his shirt from the back.” (Quran 12:25)

Again, a shirt. But this time, it is not stained. It is torn. There is something profoundly moving about that tear. It is the mark left behind by someone who refused to compromise his principles. Yusuf loses comfort, freedom, and reputation, but he refuses to lose his soul.

The Well Is Not the End

Then Allah allows that very tear to become the evidence of his innocence.

“If his shirt is torn from the back, then she has lied, and he is truthful.” (Quran 12:27)

What men tried to use against him, Allah transformed into proof for him. Such is the way of our Lord. Truth may walk slowly, but it never loses its way.

The Second Shirt: The Garment of Integrity

Many of us live in this second shirt.

We are misunderstood. Our intentions are questioned. Our character is attacked.

We wonder whether anyone sees beyond the accusations. Allah does. He always has.

Justice in this world may arrive late, and sometimes it may not arrive at all. But no truth is ever lost with Allah. Every tear, every sigh, every act of patience is preserved with the One who calls Himself Al-‘Adl, The Perfectly Just.

When Truth Is Torn but Never Destroyed

Then comes the third shirt.No blood.

No tear. No accusation. Only mercy. Only healing. Yusuf places his shirt into the hands of the very brothers who once stripped him of dignity and cast him into a well.

There is no bitterness in his voice. No desire for revenge. No humiliation of those who wronged him. Instead, he says:

“Take this shirt of mine and cast it over my father’s face; he will regain his sight” (Quran 12:93)

The shirt travels home. It carries no resentment. It carries healing. Allah says:

“When the bearer of good news arrived, he cast it over his face, and he regained his sight.” (Quran 12:96)

The Third Shirt: The Garment of Healing

What once symbolised grief now becomes the means of restoration. Could there be a more beautiful picture of hope?

The same story that began with tears ends with vision.

The family that was torn apart is reunited.

The child who disappeared becomes the means through which an entire family is healed.

From Tears to Vision

Perhaps this is why Allah called it the best of stories. Because it is not only Yusuf’s story. It is ours.

There are days when we wear the first shirt. Life wounds us in ways we never expected. We ask questions for which there seem to be no answers. We carry scars that nobody sees.

There are seasons when we wear the second shirt. Our faith is tested. We lose opportunities because we choose integrity over compromise. We are judged unfairly. We are forgotten by people, yet remembered by Allah.

And if we remain patient, if we continue walking, even through wells and prisons, if we continue trusting the Author more than the chapter, then, by His mercy, there comes a third shirt.

Trusting the Author More Than the Chapter

Not merely the healing of circumstances.

The healing of the heart. The greatest miracle in Yusuf’s life was not becoming a minister of Egypt. It was that betrayal did not make him bitter.

Power did not make him arrogant. Suffering did not make him despair.

And forgiveness did not make him weak.

That is the true miracle.

We spend so much of our lives trying to wash the blood from the first shirt or stitch together the tear in the second. We wish we could rewrite the beginning of our story.

But Allah never intended us to live in yesterday. The stained shirt had a purpose. The torn shirt had a purpose.

Without them, there could never have been the shirt that carried healing.

From Betrayal to Purpose

Perhaps the chapter you are living today is not your conclusion. Perhaps your well is preparing you for your palace. Perhaps your prison is preparing you for your purpose. Perhaps your tears are watering a garden you cannot yet see.

The One who wrote Yusuf’s story is still writing yours. He has not misplaced a single page. He has not forgotten a single tear. He has not abandoned a single promise.

Your Third Shirt Is Still Coming

So be patient with your first shirt.

Remain steadfast through your second.

And never lose hope that, by the mercy of Allah, your third shirt is already on its way.

“Indeed, my Lord is Most Subtle in what He wills. Indeed, He is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.” (Quran 12:100)