India, Sept. 20 -- The Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, a major upgrade of the long-standing economic, political and security ties between the two countries, needs to be read in the context of the turbulence in West Asia, where Israel has, in recent months, attacked multiple nations over their alleged support for Hamas. It has implications in the long term for India, but they need not be exaggerated at this moment: New Delhi's relations with Riyadh are independent of the latter's links to Islamabad and underlined by historical and cultural factors as well as growing trade and the presence of a large diaspora. The external affairs ministry has said it was aware that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were considering such a pact, and that New Delhi expects Riyadh to take into account "mutual interests and sensitivities". A key concern about the agreement stems from the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear-armed State, and that the pact extends to its nuclear arsenal. The pact says "aggression against either country shall be considered aggression against both". Riyadh and Islamabad are quite likely to read this principle differently. A key takeaway from the signing of the pact is that Saudi Arabia - and probably, the Arab world - is looking beyond the US for security guarantees amid shifts in global power relations, triggered by the Trump administration's whimsical trade and security policies. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war in Gaza and its bombings in the neighbourhood, especially of Qatar, and Washington's backing for these actions have caused cracks in West Asia's security architecture. The Arab street is angry and alarmed at Israeli aggression and its genocidal acts, as a recent UN probe describes it, in the Palestinian homeland. The semblance of normalcy injected into Tel Aviv's relations with several nations in the Arab world through the 2020 Abraham Accords is floundering. Washington's unstinted backing for Israel's actions seems to be laying the ground for the development of new power equations in the region. Two years ago, China mediated a Saudi-Iran deal that saw two long-standing ideological rivals for supremacy in the Islamic world agreeing to reconcile their differences. A closer reading of the emerging relationships may suggest multiple contradictions, but it is also a confirmation of the emergence of multipolarity in global affairs, an idea endorsed by India. New Delhi's own pursuit of its relationship with Washington while refusing to abandon its legacy ally, Moscow, and now, the engagement with Beijing, despite its backing for Islamabad during Operation Sindoor, or its close ties with both Israel and multiple West Asian countries, are examples of the new global situation. Unlike in the Cold War era or the post-Soviet era, these relationships are not driven by ideology (shared ideals of democracy, socialism or faith); transactional national interests seem to be the overriding factor shaping global power equations. It is a paradigm that has served India well in the past. This may be tested now in the case of its ties with Iran, as the US ends its sanctions waiver for the Chabahar project, a central piece in Delhi-Tehran relations. New Delhi must find ways to manoeuvre around the sanctions and continue its investment in the project that has enormous economic and strategic potential. As in the case of tariffs, India should hold its ground on Chabahar. Washington should know that it can't hold up its ties with New Delhi over the latter's pursuit of strategic autonomy in matters of national interest....