The war’s expansion into Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—countries that have so far remained directly uninvolved—could fundamentally alter the battlefield of the U.S.-Israeli war. Any country entering a war naturally needs to mobilize and justify public opinion, and this in turn rests on a fundamental factor: household economics.

A war has an “economic threshold” and a “social threshold,” which do not necessarily coincide with the “military threat threshold.” Can a pain threshold push countries toward war with Iran and persuade their publics to support it? Meanwhile, the principal perpetrators of the war are waiting from afar for these countries to tear each other apart.

The key national-security question, therefore, is: What level of economic, energy, food, infrastructure, or security disruption could make the cost of not responding to Iran greater than the cost of entering the war in each of these countries? In other words, at what point does the cost of war with Iran become lower than the cost of peace for these countries?

Answering this question requires assessing the “economic pain threshold” that directly affects household economies in these countries. This threshold can be measured through several key variables: energy, food, and infrastructure.

This assessment is particularly important given the Houthis’ recent successes on the battlefield. To understand the analytical framework guiding Iran’s national-security decision-makers, we examine how the “bearable economic cost” for these three countries can turn into a “national-security threat” for Iran, and how the Houthis’ successes could shift this threshold.

Reports from reputable media sources indicate that the Houthis’ significantly improved position along a strategic maritime route, the decline in shipping traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the simultaneous rise in oil prices have increasingly translated into an energy shock, higher inflation, and rising global transportation costs.

1. Pakistan: The “Currency-Food Security Pain Threshold”

Pakistan’s economic structure differs considerably from that of the other two countries in terms of its capacity to absorb shocks. The main channels through which a regional shock can be transmitted to Pakistan are energy, inflation, and the external balance.

For Pakistan, the escalation threshold begins with rising oil prices and proceeds through a chain of other causal mechanisms, including higher transportation costs, more expensive production, and subsequently threats to food security and inflation. This process can push the country toward a crisis threshold and ultimately toward justifying participation in the war.

Food security, in a mass socioeconomic context, can rapidly shift from an economic variable into a political and security variable. Rising prices of wheat, flour, rice, cooking oil, fertilizer, and fuel can quickly translate into public discontent.

At the same time, higher energy prices increase demand for dollars and put greater pressure on foreign-exchange reserves. The rupee depreciates, while import prices and inflation rise. This creates a feedback loop—both within the economic chain and beyond it, in Pakistan’s national-security and regional environment.

All of this is intertwined with the Houthis’ successes, and Iran should, as far as possible, manage this environment so that no direct link is established between Houthi successes and Pakistan’s economic hardship.

Paradoxically, a “mutual economic pain threshold” could strengthen informal economic networks between the two countries and, rather than pushing the Pakistani public toward supporting the war, could move it toward opposing Pakistan’s entry into the conflict.

2. Turkey: The “Trade Pain Threshold”

Turkey’s economy is heavily dependent on imported energy, and an energy shock can feed directly into inflation and the current account.

In the energy sector, higher oil and gas prices raise production and transportation costs and fuel inflation, directly reducing purchasing power. Turkey is also a major agricultural producer, so its vulnerability is not identical to Pakistan’s. However, higher fertilizer and transportation costs, combined with exchange-rate pressures, can increase the cost of food production.

For Turkey, the cost to trade is more important than food security, because it is a major industrial and trading economy deeply connected to Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

As a result, the closure or destabilization of regional trade routes could damage Turkey’s exports, tourism, transportation sector, and industrial production. The Houthis’ successes matter to Turkey in this respect because the war could turn the Red Sea into a “trade pain threshold,” even if Turkish territory itself is not directly attacked.

3. Saudi Arabia: The “Escalation Threshold”

For Saudi Arabia, the significance of the Houthis’ successes lies in the fact that the kingdom’s energy and trade routes could remain continuously exposed to threats in a regional war.

Energy is the most sensitive axis for Saudi Arabia. At first glance, higher oil prices do not necessarily constitute a source of pain for Riyadh—provided that it can continue exporting its oil. Higher oil revenues could offset part of the pressure.

The real pain, however, emerges when the crisis leads to a reduction in the country’s capacity to export or import, or causes domestic disruptions. Saudi Arabia does have alternative export routes, which increases its resilience. Therefore, an “energy threat” alone is probably insufficient.

Saudi Arabia is also less vulnerable in terms of food security because the government has greater financial capacity to absorb shocks. Food can nevertheless become important through another channel: maritime disruptions, higher import costs, food inflation, and ultimately pressure on households.

Saudi Arabia therefore remains vulnerable to the rapid transmission of global shocks into the cost of living. But the more important threat is to infrastructure, which could put the kingdom in an extremely vulnerable position. This is why Riyadh has an interest in “shock-sharing” with Turkey and Pakistan.

Threats to energy infrastructure, water supplies, and urban facilities shift the infrastructure issue into the realm of the government’s security legitimacy. And this is precisely what recent Houthi attacks could create.

What has happened so far shows that the Mecca Pact is trapped in an open, unbalanced, and asymmetric polygon. The fundamental question for Iran’s national-security policy is therefore how to steer its game toward a winning outcome within this polygon, while at the same time preventing the emergence of a justification for a “vital war” in the eyes of regional public opinion.