Preferably past 1950, you naughty persons wanting to change the split up of the Ottoman Empire. Special points if the POD is in or after some point in the 70s.
AHC: Peace in the Middle East in the Latter Half of the 20th Century
- Thread starter Emperor Norton I
- Start date
well i guess i'll say it
......
<_<
>_>
............................butterfly away Israel?
......
<_<
>_>
............................butterfly away Israel?
But the splitting of the Ottomans ruined the Middle East 
There can't be peace post-1950 without some war first. It's a sad truth, but it's a truth all the same. It's a volatile region of many ethnicities and the western powers failed to realize this when they split up the Ottoman Empire.
There can't be peace post-1950 without some war first. It's a sad truth, but it's a truth all the same. It's a volatile region of many ethnicities and the western powers failed to realize this when they split up the Ottoman Empire.
Yeah because Israel is clearly the source of all the Middle East's problems
Son of Leman Russ
Banned
Emirs of Kuwait openly thrown their support to Palestinian independence and driving Israel back to the sea in 1989. Seriously...
Because this will mean when Saddam start eyeing Kuwait oil fields, he will actually get permission to invade from US, in exchange of recognizing and make peace with Israel.
After Saddam annexed Kuwait, Assad decides that this is the time to make peace with Saddam and Israel as well, in exchange of money too...
Both dictatorship end up as buddy buddy with Israel. That will more or less bring peace to middle east (with "only" palestinians getting the worse deal)
Because this will mean when Saddam start eyeing Kuwait oil fields, he will actually get permission to invade from US, in exchange of recognizing and make peace with Israel.
After Saddam annexed Kuwait, Assad decides that this is the time to make peace with Saddam and Israel as well, in exchange of money too...
Both dictatorship end up as buddy buddy with Israel. That will more or less bring peace to middle east (with "only" palestinians getting the worse deal)
Yeah because Israel is clearly the source of all the Middle East's problems
It is however a sore point. One of them at least.
(Not that I condone it's destruction.
Of course not.)Butterfly away colonialism, of one. Best POD.
That beg the question that also without the Ottamans, would the region have been better though...?
Last edited:
Yeah because Israel is clearly the source of all the Middle East's problems
Hey, it couldn't hurt right? No Zionist trained sharks attacking innocent Egyptian beach-goers!
If nothing else, depriving corrupt governments of a convenient regional scapegoat would have an effect.
If you're referring to Israel-Palestine, I don't think it's ASB at all -- very difficult, but possible. A few possibilities:
(1) No 1967 war. Neither side planned on one, and especially if Sadat or another post-Nasser leader makes a shift to the US bloc, you may well get peace with Egypt. And with no West Bank occupation, Jordan and Israel may normalize relations by the 1990s.
(2) Yitzhak Rabin lives or Shimon Peres wins in 1996. Certainly no guarantees -- neither Rabin nor Peres in 1995 were prepared for even Ehud Barak-like concessions, and plenty could have derailed things. But it's possible that under them, Oslo would have remained on track, negotiations would have happened on schedule, and they may well have negotiated an agreement by 2000. Instead, the process collapsed under Netanyahu and by the time Barak came into power there were already major problems.
(3) John Kerry wins in 2004. Kerry's team would not have insisted on Palestinian elections in 2006, so no Hamas victory. Kerry's team also would have likely pushed for early ceasefires in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon and Israel-Gaza wars. (The Bush team encouraged the Israelis in order to weaken Syria and Hezbollah.) So you'd have a stronger Olmert, a stronger Abbas, and a Democratic president -- that's a decent constellation for a final status deal. Considering that Olmert and Abbas nearly did come to an agreement in 2008 under Bush, it's not inconceivable they could have sealed the deal in this different scenario.
(1) No 1967 war. Neither side planned on one, and especially if Sadat or another post-Nasser leader makes a shift to the US bloc, you may well get peace with Egypt. And with no West Bank occupation, Jordan and Israel may normalize relations by the 1990s.
(2) Yitzhak Rabin lives or Shimon Peres wins in 1996. Certainly no guarantees -- neither Rabin nor Peres in 1995 were prepared for even Ehud Barak-like concessions, and plenty could have derailed things. But it's possible that under them, Oslo would have remained on track, negotiations would have happened on schedule, and they may well have negotiated an agreement by 2000. Instead, the process collapsed under Netanyahu and by the time Barak came into power there were already major problems.
(3) John Kerry wins in 2004. Kerry's team would not have insisted on Palestinian elections in 2006, so no Hamas victory. Kerry's team also would have likely pushed for early ceasefires in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon and Israel-Gaza wars. (The Bush team encouraged the Israelis in order to weaken Syria and Hezbollah.) So you'd have a stronger Olmert, a stronger Abbas, and a Democratic president -- that's a decent constellation for a final status deal. Considering that Olmert and Abbas nearly did come to an agreement in 2008 under Bush, it's not inconceivable they could have sealed the deal in this different scenario.
Cook
Banned
How’s this for a first stage:
Following the capture of the West Bank in 1967, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation retreated over the Jordan River into eastern Jordan. The PLO had for a long time relied on the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan as their primary base of operations and support, after military camps near the Jordan River valley proved too vulnerable to Israeli attack, the PLO militia redeployed to the main refugee camps closer to Amman. Here they began exercising real authority, establishing checkpoints, enforcing their own edicts and extracting ‘taxes’ from the inhabitants and Jordanian businesses providing services to the camps. Concerned at their growing power, talk of the PLO being ‘a state within a state’ and coffee shop talk of ‘the road to Jerusalem runs through Amman’, King Hussein acts to restrict Palestinian power; he introduces an edict, prohibiting the militias from carrying arms, setting up road-blocks and collecting ‘taxes’ and requires Palestinians to carry Jordanian identity papers. Threatened by the king’s actions, the PLO responds by subverting part of the Jordanian army to stage a coup and topple Hussein.
The coup attempt narrowly fails, what follows is a bloody fratricidal civil war; more than half of the Hashemite kingdom’s citizens identify themselves as Palestinian, either former inhabitants of the West Bank, or refugees who fled the foundation of Israel in 1948-49. The PLO receives direct military support from Syria, and some tacit support from Egypt.
During the civil war, an attempt is made on Hussein’s life; a Sagger anti-tank missile, supplied to the PFLP by the Syrian army, is fired at his convoy travelling through the streets of Amman. He is unscathed, something that is seen as little short of miraculous given the amount of damage his car sustains in the near miss, but his wife, Princess Muna al-Hussein (ne: Antoinette Gardiner) is killed. Hussein is deeply embittered by her loss and is determined that there will not be a PLO presence in his kingdom again; a house cannot have two masters.
After hard fighting, the PLO militia is driven out of Jordan. Taking refuge in Syria, but the organisation seeks more a more permanent, and a stronger, independent power base. Lebanon, with its 400,000 Palestinian refugees, is seen as a promising destination. But the government of President Frangieh and Prime Minister Salam has watched the Jordanian fighting with deep concern; he is only too aware that he what he presides over is not so much a country as a jigsaw puzzle; at any moment the whole thing may fall apart. Salam informs Arafat and the PLO that, while his government continues to sympathise and support the struggle of their Palestinian brothers, the armed presence of a Palestinian militia would pose too great a threat to the security of Lebanon; the small size of the country, and the ease with which the Zionists can attack any part of it are cited as the primary reasons to decline permission for the PLO militias to enter. The Lebanese will continue to stand aloof of the struggles surrounding it in the region, acutely conscious that their peace and prosperity, envied by their regional neighbours, could be shattered by a single incautious act. The main headquarters of Fatah and the PLO remains in Syria.
In 1973, after a desultory War of Attrition that began almost as soon as the Six Day War of ’67 ended, and which is seen as little more than a nuisance by the Israelis, the Egyptians and Syrians launch a shocking surprise attack on Israeli positions overlooking the Suez Canal and on the Golan Heights. King Hussein of Jordan is still estranged from the other frontline Arab states and takes no part in the fighting. The war comes as a complete strategic and tactical surprise to the Israelis; their armed forces are at a very low state of alert with many men are away from their units enjoying Yom Kippur with their families all across Israel. The Egyptians success is extraordinary; in a week they secure the entire east bank of the Suez Canal to a depth of almost ten miles. Israeli air attacks run into a storm of Soviet supplied surface-to-air missiles, and suffer appalling losses. Early Israeli armoured attacks are likewise repulsed, Soviet supplied anti-tank missiles mean that Israeli tanks are no longer unstoppable as they were in the Six Day War.
On the Syrian front in the Golan, things do not proceed so well. The initial attacks are as shocking to the IDF forces defending there as the Egyptian attacks in Sinai are, but the Israeli commanders prioritise sending reserves to the Golan; within two days, the units facing Syria are at full strength and the offensive is checked. The Israelis then counterattack, break through the Syrian lines and push towards Damascus, but they find the going hard and suffer heavy losses.
The setback in the Golan prompts Syrian demands for more action by their Egyptian allies, who are viewed as resting on their laurels instead of continuing to attack and weaken the Zionists. The resulting Egyptian attacks are disastrous; the Israelis, having had time to bring up reserves, are no longer understrength; worse, the Egyptians have advanced beyond the range of their SAM batteries, exposing their armour to fierce Israeli air attacks. Within a day, 14 October, the new Egyptian attacks are defeated. The Israelis then launch their own offensive, smashing through the Egyptian line in the centre of the Suez Canal. They then swing south and drive for the Red Sea; the Egyptians realise too late that their Third Army is now trapped east of the Suez Canal and is cut off; little remains between the Zionist threat and Cairo itself.
Both sides are by now exhausted and accept a Superpower brokered ceasefire. On the Arab side, unity rapidly breaks down over recriminations as to who was responsible for this new defeat. The Israelis, for their part, have been deeply shocked and impressed by the performance of the Arab forces in this latest round of fighting; gone is the arrogant post-Six Day War Israeli swagger; they can no longer regard themselves as impervious.
Egypt’s president Sadat, although boosted internally by the performance of Egypt’s armed forces, is conscious that, while Arab honour has been restored, the army was unable to secure and hold any ground permanently, and had been unable to stop the Israelis from crossing the Suez Canal. It was time for a political solution. Taking a leaf out Nixon’s playbook (‘I shall go to China’), Sadat announces that he is willing to fly to Jerusalem and address the Israeli Knesset. It is a first step in a peace process, but an extraordinary one! Sadat visits Israel, the first Arab head of state to do so, in November 1977. He delivers a ground breaking offer: Egypt is willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel in return for the land they lost in the 1967 war.
In December, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin visits Cairo for a summit with Sadat and real progress seems likely. The US government scrambles to catch up with a process that the two leaders have initiated without them, and have an unexpected strategic windfall: Egypt breaks from the Soviets and expels Soviet military advisors. Offers of economic deals in conjunction to the peace negotiations look like significantly improving the Egyptian economy, and securing Egypt as a long term ally for the Americans.
In Jordan, Hussein is at a crossroads; he can choose to remain in a state of war with Israel, which promises no opportunity to actually regain his lost lands west of the Jordan, or he can join Sadat and Begin at the negotiating table. He chooses the latter, in no small part because of his bitterness towards the people who killed his wife. But Hussein is more cautious, he will not fly to Israel and will not host talks in Jordan, but he will take part in the negotiations in Egypt and the United States; better that his subjects taste some of the benefits of any peace deal before they have to accept the emotional cost of seeing the Israelis in Amman. By mid-1979 the parties have reached an agreement, the territories seized by Israel in 1967 would be returned in exchange for peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and mutual, independently supervised security guarantees. A new peacekeeping body is established: the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), tasked with supervising the Sinai and West Bank and the Israeli borders immediately adjacent to these territories. This is not a UN sponsored peace-keeping mission; the UN has not been involved at any stage in the negotiations and the final peace treaties are condemned on the floor of the General Assembly. Israel begins to withdraw from the territories, completing the handover by 1983.
In the north, the Golan Heights remained a pint of contention. Israel still firmly occupied the territory; the Syrian government had condemned the entire peace process and continued to host the PLO within its territory. That remained the case for the 1980s, but the new decade brought with it a profound strategic shock for the Syrian regime; the Soviet Union, Syria’s principal sponsor, collapses.
Following the capture of the West Bank in 1967, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation retreated over the Jordan River into eastern Jordan. The PLO had for a long time relied on the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan as their primary base of operations and support, after military camps near the Jordan River valley proved too vulnerable to Israeli attack, the PLO militia redeployed to the main refugee camps closer to Amman. Here they began exercising real authority, establishing checkpoints, enforcing their own edicts and extracting ‘taxes’ from the inhabitants and Jordanian businesses providing services to the camps. Concerned at their growing power, talk of the PLO being ‘a state within a state’ and coffee shop talk of ‘the road to Jerusalem runs through Amman’, King Hussein acts to restrict Palestinian power; he introduces an edict, prohibiting the militias from carrying arms, setting up road-blocks and collecting ‘taxes’ and requires Palestinians to carry Jordanian identity papers. Threatened by the king’s actions, the PLO responds by subverting part of the Jordanian army to stage a coup and topple Hussein.
The coup attempt narrowly fails, what follows is a bloody fratricidal civil war; more than half of the Hashemite kingdom’s citizens identify themselves as Palestinian, either former inhabitants of the West Bank, or refugees who fled the foundation of Israel in 1948-49. The PLO receives direct military support from Syria, and some tacit support from Egypt.
During the civil war, an attempt is made on Hussein’s life; a Sagger anti-tank missile, supplied to the PFLP by the Syrian army, is fired at his convoy travelling through the streets of Amman. He is unscathed, something that is seen as little short of miraculous given the amount of damage his car sustains in the near miss, but his wife, Princess Muna al-Hussein (ne: Antoinette Gardiner) is killed. Hussein is deeply embittered by her loss and is determined that there will not be a PLO presence in his kingdom again; a house cannot have two masters.
After hard fighting, the PLO militia is driven out of Jordan. Taking refuge in Syria, but the organisation seeks more a more permanent, and a stronger, independent power base. Lebanon, with its 400,000 Palestinian refugees, is seen as a promising destination. But the government of President Frangieh and Prime Minister Salam has watched the Jordanian fighting with deep concern; he is only too aware that he what he presides over is not so much a country as a jigsaw puzzle; at any moment the whole thing may fall apart. Salam informs Arafat and the PLO that, while his government continues to sympathise and support the struggle of their Palestinian brothers, the armed presence of a Palestinian militia would pose too great a threat to the security of Lebanon; the small size of the country, and the ease with which the Zionists can attack any part of it are cited as the primary reasons to decline permission for the PLO militias to enter. The Lebanese will continue to stand aloof of the struggles surrounding it in the region, acutely conscious that their peace and prosperity, envied by their regional neighbours, could be shattered by a single incautious act. The main headquarters of Fatah and the PLO remains in Syria.
In 1973, after a desultory War of Attrition that began almost as soon as the Six Day War of ’67 ended, and which is seen as little more than a nuisance by the Israelis, the Egyptians and Syrians launch a shocking surprise attack on Israeli positions overlooking the Suez Canal and on the Golan Heights. King Hussein of Jordan is still estranged from the other frontline Arab states and takes no part in the fighting. The war comes as a complete strategic and tactical surprise to the Israelis; their armed forces are at a very low state of alert with many men are away from their units enjoying Yom Kippur with their families all across Israel. The Egyptians success is extraordinary; in a week they secure the entire east bank of the Suez Canal to a depth of almost ten miles. Israeli air attacks run into a storm of Soviet supplied surface-to-air missiles, and suffer appalling losses. Early Israeli armoured attacks are likewise repulsed, Soviet supplied anti-tank missiles mean that Israeli tanks are no longer unstoppable as they were in the Six Day War.
On the Syrian front in the Golan, things do not proceed so well. The initial attacks are as shocking to the IDF forces defending there as the Egyptian attacks in Sinai are, but the Israeli commanders prioritise sending reserves to the Golan; within two days, the units facing Syria are at full strength and the offensive is checked. The Israelis then counterattack, break through the Syrian lines and push towards Damascus, but they find the going hard and suffer heavy losses.
The setback in the Golan prompts Syrian demands for more action by their Egyptian allies, who are viewed as resting on their laurels instead of continuing to attack and weaken the Zionists. The resulting Egyptian attacks are disastrous; the Israelis, having had time to bring up reserves, are no longer understrength; worse, the Egyptians have advanced beyond the range of their SAM batteries, exposing their armour to fierce Israeli air attacks. Within a day, 14 October, the new Egyptian attacks are defeated. The Israelis then launch their own offensive, smashing through the Egyptian line in the centre of the Suez Canal. They then swing south and drive for the Red Sea; the Egyptians realise too late that their Third Army is now trapped east of the Suez Canal and is cut off; little remains between the Zionist threat and Cairo itself.
Both sides are by now exhausted and accept a Superpower brokered ceasefire. On the Arab side, unity rapidly breaks down over recriminations as to who was responsible for this new defeat. The Israelis, for their part, have been deeply shocked and impressed by the performance of the Arab forces in this latest round of fighting; gone is the arrogant post-Six Day War Israeli swagger; they can no longer regard themselves as impervious.
Egypt’s president Sadat, although boosted internally by the performance of Egypt’s armed forces, is conscious that, while Arab honour has been restored, the army was unable to secure and hold any ground permanently, and had been unable to stop the Israelis from crossing the Suez Canal. It was time for a political solution. Taking a leaf out Nixon’s playbook (‘I shall go to China’), Sadat announces that he is willing to fly to Jerusalem and address the Israeli Knesset. It is a first step in a peace process, but an extraordinary one! Sadat visits Israel, the first Arab head of state to do so, in November 1977. He delivers a ground breaking offer: Egypt is willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel in return for the land they lost in the 1967 war.
In December, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin visits Cairo for a summit with Sadat and real progress seems likely. The US government scrambles to catch up with a process that the two leaders have initiated without them, and have an unexpected strategic windfall: Egypt breaks from the Soviets and expels Soviet military advisors. Offers of economic deals in conjunction to the peace negotiations look like significantly improving the Egyptian economy, and securing Egypt as a long term ally for the Americans.
In Jordan, Hussein is at a crossroads; he can choose to remain in a state of war with Israel, which promises no opportunity to actually regain his lost lands west of the Jordan, or he can join Sadat and Begin at the negotiating table. He chooses the latter, in no small part because of his bitterness towards the people who killed his wife. But Hussein is more cautious, he will not fly to Israel and will not host talks in Jordan, but he will take part in the negotiations in Egypt and the United States; better that his subjects taste some of the benefits of any peace deal before they have to accept the emotional cost of seeing the Israelis in Amman. By mid-1979 the parties have reached an agreement, the territories seized by Israel in 1967 would be returned in exchange for peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and mutual, independently supervised security guarantees. A new peacekeeping body is established: the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), tasked with supervising the Sinai and West Bank and the Israeli borders immediately adjacent to these territories. This is not a UN sponsored peace-keeping mission; the UN has not been involved at any stage in the negotiations and the final peace treaties are condemned on the floor of the General Assembly. Israel begins to withdraw from the territories, completing the handover by 1983.
In the north, the Golan Heights remained a pint of contention. Israel still firmly occupied the territory; the Syrian government had condemned the entire peace process and continued to host the PLO within its territory. That remained the case for the 1980s, but the new decade brought with it a profound strategic shock for the Syrian regime; the Soviet Union, Syria’s principal sponsor, collapses.
Nice, but a bit late, because you really do need to start at least in 1953, because even if you do get the Israel issue sorted, Iran is going to turn and bit you in the butt sooner or later if you don't do something about it, and the easiest way to do something about it is not to oust Mosaddegh in the first place. Maybe Truman offers to mediate and they come up with a solution.
Cook
Banned
The 1970s also saw significant changes in the strategic situation further east, in the states surrounding the Persian Gulf. In 1971 Britain announced that it would be completing withdraw of forces ‘East of Suez’; prior to then the British has been the security guarantor for the small Emirates of the region. On 30 November 1971, the very day that Britain’s security guarantee to the Principality of Ras al Khaima expired, the Shah of Iran seized two small islands near the Straits of Hormuz belonging to the principality: Greater and Lesser Tunb Islands. These were uninhabited, but their location near the main sea-lanes in and out of the Persian Gulf made them critical to the safe passage of oil tankers from the region. The Shah seized a third island, Abu Musa, from Sharjah and annexed all three, strengthening his already dominant position in the mouth of the gulf.
Although these islands had belonged to small principalities and emirates that, when they came together politically formed the United Arab Emirates, and therefore might have been considered an issue only between the U.A.E. and Iran, their loss incensed Bagdad. The Ba’ath regime of Iraq was dedicated to the unification of the ‘Arab State’, of which Iraq was but the nucleus around which encompassed all Arab lands; the Shah had therefore seized territory that they saw as rightfully belonging to ‘the Arab people’. They broke of diplomatic relations with Iran and Britain (who was seen, correctly, as having conspired with the Shah on the issue) and strengthened ties with the Soviet Union, signing a Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation, cementing the diplomatic and security relationship between Bagdad and Moscow, in April 1972.
In response to the new treaty, President Nixon backed Iran even more strongly, announcing in May 1972 that the Shah could buy any non-nuclear U.S. weapons that he wished to; this gave Iran greater access to U.S. hardware than many NATO states enjoyed.
The Shah, who saw the Ba’ath regime in Bagdad as ‘a group of crazy, bloodthirsty savages’, began to provide military aid to the Kurdish Democratic Party, then trying to achieve independence from Iraq. Fighting in northern Iraq between the KDP’s 45,000 strong militia and most of Iraq’s 100,000 strong army intensified over the following year, threatening to lead to open war between Iraq and Iran. Concerned that a larger war would destroy their oil industries, Tehran and Bagdad agreed to an Algerian brokered peace agreement in 1975. The agreement required both parties to end their backing of separatists in the other’s country. The treaty also resolved a long standing dispute border dispute between the two countries along the Shatt al Arab waterway south of Basra.
The Shah of Iran, by now the most important U.S. ally in the region, was an oppressive monarchical autocrat, who maintained power in Iran by use of a brutal secret police: the SAVAK. Political and religious freedoms were supressed, with many opponents being killed by the SAVAK or fleeing into exile. Then, in 1979, despite Iran being in what the C.I.A. assessed as ‘not in a revolutionary, or even a pre-revolutionary situation’, the Ancien Régime was swept from power by an unlikely coalition of secular liberals and religious conservatives in an unprecedented campaign of strikes and public protests. The Shah fled abroad, initially seeking refuge in Egypt, then later Morocco. He did not stay long in any one place; as if fearing the reach of his vengeful former subjects, he moved from Morocco to the Bahamas, and then to Mexico. While in Mexico he began to suffer from gallstones. Despite an offer of treatment in a private clinic in Switzerland, he asked to be treated at Cornell Hospital in New York.
The Shah’s request caused considerable embarrassment to the White House; while he was in power, good relations with him had been seen as critical (As the phrase went: ‘He may be an S.O.B., but he’s our S.O.B.!’), but now he was an embarrassment and a liability, both domestically and with regard to relations with the new regime in the former Kingdom, now renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran. State department representatives discretely visited the Shah in Mexico City and informed him that his presence in the United States would be diplomatically impossible at this time. They were willing however to cover the cost of sending medical experts from New York to Switzerland to consult in his medical treatment, and would continue to ensure that he was not returned to Iran. In October 1979, the bitter and disillusioned former Shah flew to Switzerland for treatment, complaining in press interviews of his shabby treatment in the hands of the Americans. Carter’s White House weathered a storm of criticism from various Senators, Congressmen, and former Californian Governor Ronald Reagan (who was campaigning to become the Republican presidential candidate), who all said that Carter's ‘betrayal’ of the Shah was damaging America’s standing abroad.
Ironically, the Shah’s public criticism of America was beneficial to the U.S.; relations between the United States, the principal backer of the Ancien Régime, and the new Theocratic rulers in Tehran had been decidedly cool, but slowly began to improve when his interviews were screened on Iranian state television; America began to be seen as just another infidel regime, with whom business could be done as long as they knew not to interfere with the affairs of the Islamic Republic. The following year saw relations between Iran and the U.S. improved decidedly; in December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded neighbouring Afghanistan, once again awakening Washington and Tehran to the fact that they shared a common and very powerful enemy in the Soviet Union, and in mid-1980 the Shah died in exile in Egypt, removing the bitterest thorn from the relationship between the two countries. Military ties, which had been downgraded at the beginning of the Carter presidency, and then further severely curtailed with the fall of the Shah, were renewed; Iran was able to purchase spare parts for its American built fighter aircraft and armoured vehicles. Iran also took possession of several naval vessels that the Shah had ordered but that weren’t completed until after his fall, and new surface-to-air missile defence systems, designed specifically to counter the new generation of Soviet fighters and bombers, were purchased. In 1982, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) took delivery of its first 20 F-16A fighters; by the end of the Cold War, the Fighting Falcon had become the primary frontline fighter of the IRIAF. During the decade that Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan, military ties between the United States and Iran remained good.
In Bagdad, Iran's 'Islamic Revolution' was seen as an unprecedented strategic opportunity; the KDP had lost its principal backer and the Iraqi army launched a bloody offensive to destroy the Kurdish militia while Tehran was distracted internally. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, hoping to benefit further from the turmoil in Iran, began planning an invasion of the oil-rich Iranian border province of Khūzestān (Referred to as Arabistan by Bagdad), but renewed military ties between Tehran and Washington forced the delay and final cancelation of the planned invasion; Saddam was forced to accept that the opportunity had been lost and satisfy himself with crushing resistance amongst Iraq's Kurds.
Although these islands had belonged to small principalities and emirates that, when they came together politically formed the United Arab Emirates, and therefore might have been considered an issue only between the U.A.E. and Iran, their loss incensed Bagdad. The Ba’ath regime of Iraq was dedicated to the unification of the ‘Arab State’, of which Iraq was but the nucleus around which encompassed all Arab lands; the Shah had therefore seized territory that they saw as rightfully belonging to ‘the Arab people’. They broke of diplomatic relations with Iran and Britain (who was seen, correctly, as having conspired with the Shah on the issue) and strengthened ties with the Soviet Union, signing a Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation, cementing the diplomatic and security relationship between Bagdad and Moscow, in April 1972.
In response to the new treaty, President Nixon backed Iran even more strongly, announcing in May 1972 that the Shah could buy any non-nuclear U.S. weapons that he wished to; this gave Iran greater access to U.S. hardware than many NATO states enjoyed.
The Shah, who saw the Ba’ath regime in Bagdad as ‘a group of crazy, bloodthirsty savages’, began to provide military aid to the Kurdish Democratic Party, then trying to achieve independence from Iraq. Fighting in northern Iraq between the KDP’s 45,000 strong militia and most of Iraq’s 100,000 strong army intensified over the following year, threatening to lead to open war between Iraq and Iran. Concerned that a larger war would destroy their oil industries, Tehran and Bagdad agreed to an Algerian brokered peace agreement in 1975. The agreement required both parties to end their backing of separatists in the other’s country. The treaty also resolved a long standing dispute border dispute between the two countries along the Shatt al Arab waterway south of Basra.
The Shah of Iran, by now the most important U.S. ally in the region, was an oppressive monarchical autocrat, who maintained power in Iran by use of a brutal secret police: the SAVAK. Political and religious freedoms were supressed, with many opponents being killed by the SAVAK or fleeing into exile. Then, in 1979, despite Iran being in what the C.I.A. assessed as ‘not in a revolutionary, or even a pre-revolutionary situation’, the Ancien Régime was swept from power by an unlikely coalition of secular liberals and religious conservatives in an unprecedented campaign of strikes and public protests. The Shah fled abroad, initially seeking refuge in Egypt, then later Morocco. He did not stay long in any one place; as if fearing the reach of his vengeful former subjects, he moved from Morocco to the Bahamas, and then to Mexico. While in Mexico he began to suffer from gallstones. Despite an offer of treatment in a private clinic in Switzerland, he asked to be treated at Cornell Hospital in New York.
The Shah’s request caused considerable embarrassment to the White House; while he was in power, good relations with him had been seen as critical (As the phrase went: ‘He may be an S.O.B., but he’s our S.O.B.!’), but now he was an embarrassment and a liability, both domestically and with regard to relations with the new regime in the former Kingdom, now renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran. State department representatives discretely visited the Shah in Mexico City and informed him that his presence in the United States would be diplomatically impossible at this time. They were willing however to cover the cost of sending medical experts from New York to Switzerland to consult in his medical treatment, and would continue to ensure that he was not returned to Iran. In October 1979, the bitter and disillusioned former Shah flew to Switzerland for treatment, complaining in press interviews of his shabby treatment in the hands of the Americans. Carter’s White House weathered a storm of criticism from various Senators, Congressmen, and former Californian Governor Ronald Reagan (who was campaigning to become the Republican presidential candidate), who all said that Carter's ‘betrayal’ of the Shah was damaging America’s standing abroad.
Ironically, the Shah’s public criticism of America was beneficial to the U.S.; relations between the United States, the principal backer of the Ancien Régime, and the new Theocratic rulers in Tehran had been decidedly cool, but slowly began to improve when his interviews were screened on Iranian state television; America began to be seen as just another infidel regime, with whom business could be done as long as they knew not to interfere with the affairs of the Islamic Republic. The following year saw relations between Iran and the U.S. improved decidedly; in December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded neighbouring Afghanistan, once again awakening Washington and Tehran to the fact that they shared a common and very powerful enemy in the Soviet Union, and in mid-1980 the Shah died in exile in Egypt, removing the bitterest thorn from the relationship between the two countries. Military ties, which had been downgraded at the beginning of the Carter presidency, and then further severely curtailed with the fall of the Shah, were renewed; Iran was able to purchase spare parts for its American built fighter aircraft and armoured vehicles. Iran also took possession of several naval vessels that the Shah had ordered but that weren’t completed until after his fall, and new surface-to-air missile defence systems, designed specifically to counter the new generation of Soviet fighters and bombers, were purchased. In 1982, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) took delivery of its first 20 F-16A fighters; by the end of the Cold War, the Fighting Falcon had become the primary frontline fighter of the IRIAF. During the decade that Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan, military ties between the United States and Iran remained good.
In Bagdad, Iran's 'Islamic Revolution' was seen as an unprecedented strategic opportunity; the KDP had lost its principal backer and the Iraqi army launched a bloody offensive to destroy the Kurdish militia while Tehran was distracted internally. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, hoping to benefit further from the turmoil in Iran, began planning an invasion of the oil-rich Iranian border province of Khūzestān (Referred to as Arabistan by Bagdad), but renewed military ties between Tehran and Washington forced the delay and final cancelation of the planned invasion; Saddam was forced to accept that the opportunity had been lost and satisfy himself with crushing resistance amongst Iraq's Kurds.
Last edited:
Deleted member 9338
Something a Little Different
This will have a POD between 1949 and 1952.
Israel will do historically the same in the 1948 War of Independence. Jordon not only moves into to control the refugee issue in the West Bank but with support of the US, UK and UN they annex the West Bank and set up West Jerusalem as an international cultural zone policed by locals with the supervision of the UN.
With financial support from the US and possibly UK the refugees will be integrated into the Kingdom of Jordon. Once this is underway Amman will look to western companies to enter into the Kingdom to establish manufacturing facilities.
In a second stage non-Jews in Israel will be offered opportunities in Jordon that are not available in Israel. This second emigration will be added to the existing population of the Kingdom.
In time a similar situation will occur in Gaza.
The PLO will not be allowed to be formed and Kingdoms will be maintained in both Egypt and Jordon. Stability and Economic Growth will be the by words in the Middle East with religious rights being maintained.
How is the?
This will have a POD between 1949 and 1952.
Israel will do historically the same in the 1948 War of Independence. Jordon not only moves into to control the refugee issue in the West Bank but with support of the US, UK and UN they annex the West Bank and set up West Jerusalem as an international cultural zone policed by locals with the supervision of the UN.
With financial support from the US and possibly UK the refugees will be integrated into the Kingdom of Jordon. Once this is underway Amman will look to western companies to enter into the Kingdom to establish manufacturing facilities.
In a second stage non-Jews in Israel will be offered opportunities in Jordon that are not available in Israel. This second emigration will be added to the existing population of the Kingdom.
In time a similar situation will occur in Gaza.
The PLO will not be allowed to be formed and Kingdoms will be maintained in both Egypt and Jordon. Stability and Economic Growth will be the by words in the Middle East with religious rights being maintained.
How is the?
Yeah because Israel is clearly the source of all the Middle East's problems
Surely not all (Sykes-Picot deserves all the blame this board routinely pours on it and then some) but it contributes significantly to make the area less peaceful.
Jordan and Israel DID normalize relations in 1990s. And Sadat wasn't in charge in 1967, and could hardly make peace without something equivalent to the October war or significant Israeli concessions of some kind. Not sure that Olmert could have reached a final status that Palestinians could accept, and if the ANP bears the consequences of what, say, Hamas does to stress they aren't accepting it, it does not bid well for continued peace.
My point was that if Jordan with the West Bank normalizes relations with Israel that in theory removes a lot of the current conflict. Not everything, of course. And it's only one possibility following no '67 war (an alternate war that rejiggers the map is also possible.)
I never implied Sadat was in power in '67. My point was that after Nasser dies if Sadat still succeeds him as OTL (and he might not), he may still pursue the same pro-US shift as he did OTL. And Sadat had been making peace overtures - publicly - to Israel well before the '73 war. The '73 war was in part due to a rejection of those efforts. Absent the '67 war and the Israeli occupation of the Sinai, they might be more receptive to those overtures. (Though in fairness, Sadat himself may also feel less pressure to make peace with them without them holding the Sinai).
Hamas rejectionism is still likely an issue. But Hamas might well be weaker in a situation where they never (a) won the Palestinian elections, (b) never seized control of Gaza, and (c) where the PA was actually able to bring about a Palestinian state. Again, far from certain - but the OP asked for Mideast peace scenarios and I think all these are possible, even if not definite.
Pan-Arabism succeeds:
The Iranian Civil War is pretty peripheral and can be removed rather easily from the scenario.