Khosrow II, the last of the "great" Sassanid shahs (the quotes are because he was actually pretty terrible), began his reign under very inauspicious circumstances: his father, the destructively paranoid Hormizd IV, had been murdered, the empire was locked in a long, bloody and fruitless war with Rome and, worst of all, Bahram Chobin, a respected general and member of the House of Mihran, had risen up in revolt against the Sasanian dynasty (having had enough of his mistreatment at the hands of Hormizd) and was marching toward Ctesiphon.
IOTL, Khosrow was forced to flee the capital and enter Roman territory, since the troops he had under his control were no match to Bahram's. He was eventually restored to the Persian throne with the help of emperor Maurice, but in return for that aid he was forced to relinquish western Armenia to the Romans.
So what if he isn't forced to flee, for whatever reason, and thus doesn't need Maurice's help to stay in power? Could Persia and Constantinople reach a peace deal that doesn't involve the former ceding a lot of territory to the latter? Assuming they can, could a Khosrow who doesn't have to make such a humiliating concession right at the beginning of his reign be less paranoid or autocratic, or at least not to the point where he thinks executing his uncles (a decision that caused a six-year civil war) and the last Lakhmid king (which destroyed a valuable buffer between Mesopotamia and Arabia) is a good idea?
IOTL, Khosrow was forced to flee the capital and enter Roman territory, since the troops he had under his control were no match to Bahram's. He was eventually restored to the Persian throne with the help of emperor Maurice, but in return for that aid he was forced to relinquish western Armenia to the Romans.
So what if he isn't forced to flee, for whatever reason, and thus doesn't need Maurice's help to stay in power? Could Persia and Constantinople reach a peace deal that doesn't involve the former ceding a lot of territory to the latter? Assuming they can, could a Khosrow who doesn't have to make such a humiliating concession right at the beginning of his reign be less paranoid or autocratic, or at least not to the point where he thinks executing his uncles (a decision that caused a six-year civil war) and the last Lakhmid king (which destroyed a valuable buffer between Mesopotamia and Arabia) is a good idea?