World in Conflict - Lebanon War escalation.

[burgoynewulfe]

[Redone] World in Conflict

[Redone]World in Conflict
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Following the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, Jordan became the home to over a million Palestinian refugees, abandoning their settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights, in effect setting the stage for the future conflict. With the radicalization among Palestinian refugees, the Palestinian Liberation Organization became a powerful militant force, based in Jordan. And with the assassination of king Hussein in 1970, following “Black September”, the PLO overthrew the Jordanian monarchy, with Yasser Arafat becoming the first president of the Republic of Jordan.

By October 1973 a coalition of Arab states (Jordan under Yasser Arafat, Syria under Hafez al-Assad, and Egypt under Anwar Sadat) launched a surprise attack on Israel, invading the nation through the Golan Heights, the Sinai, and the West Bank. After a mere three months of fighting and thousands of casualties on both sides peace was finally made, a stalemate that would lead the world into a global conflict in just a decade. When the Camp David Accords were signed in 1978, Israel was left in a precarious position, surrounded by an Arab coalition bent on their destruction.

Due to multifaceted tensions caused by the Palestinian refugees inside Jordan and with those still loyal to the late Hashemite monarchy, civil war broke out in early 1975, with the PLO continuing violence against Israel, emboldened by a perceived victory against Israel in 1973. This violence peaked during Operation “Rift Valley”, provoked by the West Bank Massacre which was carried out by Palestinian militants based in Western Jordan. As a result the United Nations Interim Force was created in Jordan, and to confirm Israeli withdraw from Western Jordan to restore international peace and security.

Following relative peace between Israel and Jordan in 1980-81, the peace was shattered when Israel resumed strikes against targets in Western Jordan, in an attempt to trigger a war to drive out the PLO from Western Jordan and restore the peace. In July 1981 a ceasefire had been brokered and the Israeli-Jordanian border experienced a state of peace and calm not seen since 1967. But it was not to last. Following the PLO bombing of Israeli civilian and military targets near the Israeli-Jordanian border in the West Bank in April 1982. As a result of the attacks Israel once again resumed air strikes against Jordan, culminating in the Israeli invasion of Western Jordan in June 1982, in operation "Peace For Jordan."

After Israel's invasion of Jordan and occupation of Amman, Syria brought Egypt into the war, both invading Israel respectively, and receiving financial support from the Soviet Union while Israel received financial support from the United States. But in October 1983 the war would take a turn for the worst with the PLO bombing of the Amman Marine Barracks, killing hundreds of French and American servicemen. Through investigation it was found the PLO had been supplied by the Soviet Union with money and resources to launch the attack, although in retrospect it is unlikely the Soviet government was aware of the PLO plans to attack the Marine barracks.

The war finally boiled over in November 1983 when during Able Archer, a NATO war games exercise in Europe, led to fighting in West Germany, which in turn led to a full scale Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany.

And the rest is history..

 

[burgoynewulfe]

What do you think of my redone timeline?

 

[Asp]

What do you think of my redone timeline?

I just found this now. It has real promise and I appreciate you doing a TL on Black September. It's an interesting WI in history

That said, there are still some issues.

For starters, the idea of an ATL 1978 Camp David Accord is a nonstarter here. The very premise behind the treaty was that Israel would give up the land it had taken from Egypt in exchange for recognition and peace (Syria was offered the same deal for the Golan but rejected it). There is absolutely no reason for them to agree to such a treaty if Egypt is still interested in warring with them. Conversely, an Egypt interested in warring with Israel is not going to agree to diplomatic relations with Israel and peace. So I don't really see where that's coming from.

The next glaring issue is the difference in military capability between the OTL and ATL PLO. In OTL, the PLO that fought in Lebanon were Fedayeen: light infantry guerrillas whose abilities were limited to waging guerrilla warfare against Israel across the Lebanon border. Their weapons were AK-47's, RPG's, MANPADS, mortars, and perhaps some artillery. They did not have the training, communications, or organization to operate above the company level. Perhaps most critically, they had no anti-air capabilities beyond MANPADS and absolutely nothing in the way of an Air Force.

In your scenario, the PLO is an actual Baathist nation state. They will likely have inherited the bones of the Jordanian military and integrated it with the PLO fedayeen. Jordan OTL had the best trained military in the ME and will have experienced military leaders and organizers Arafat can pardon and make use of, so this will boost their capabilities in its own right. They will be receiving training and equipment from the USSR, either Iraq or Syria, and post-1979, from Iran (Khomeini was always friendly with Arafat). In Lebanon, they weren't on their home soil, had a varying degree of friendliness with the locals, and were fighting back with the aforementioned AK-47's, RPG's, MANPADS, mortars, and perhaps some artillery. In your TL, they are on their own soil, are recruiting from their own people, are better trained and organized, and are fighting with all the listed things, but also MiGs, T-72's, BTRs, bombers, ground attack aircraft, helicopters, LOTS of artillery and rockets, SAMs, SCUDs, many times their former numbers, and God only knows what else. Furthermore, they will be capable of operating at the division/corps level and above, as well as launching guerrilla raids into Israel. There is even the possibility they may try to go the Syria route and create a chemical arsenal.

As a result, the fighting is going to look much more conventional and be much nastier.

I think UN forces being introduced to oversee withdrawals are unlikely. Such peacekeeping missions occur in areas that are anarchic and don't have the rule of law. They rarely get physically involved in disputes between deeply antagonistic nation states. Arafat would never allow an international peacekeeping force in Amman.

The politics are also different. To put it simply, there's now an Arab leader who cares about the Palestinians. None of the Arab rulers OTL actually gave a scat about them. They were fighting Israel for their own territorial gain, to give their native populations someone to hate (standard dictatorship playbook), and for geopolitical reasons. None were primarily motivated by a desire to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians. This put Arafat on a shorter leash in OTL. He was a non state actor who had to depend upon others for support, and they had the ability to rein him in if he got too bellicose. Syria was probably the most antagonistic state to Israel, but even they weren't interested in fighting a perpetual war in Lebanon and kept enough of a lid on things to ensure it didn't turn into a full blown war with Israel. This is why the truces in Lebanon held and why it took the pattern of periods of peace punctuated by war.

Arafat the ATL Baathist ruler of Jordan is different. He's his own player now with his own native land and power base who can call his own shots. The minute he takes over, I expect nonstop war at varying levels of intensity. He's a Palestinian himself, is motivated by a desire to take the fight to Israel and impose terms on them they'll never accept, and isn't going to pull any punches. The periods of peace interrupted by war in this TL that mimic OTL Lebanon are unlikely to occur for this reason.