Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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If I remember right it collapses into a theocracy that considers oil production haram and gets carved up by Iraq and some other countries.
Funny enough I debated the idea of a "oil is haram" wrinkle to it, but decided that was probably too unrealistic (otherwise that'd have come up elsewhere in the Middle East, I'm sure).
But I'm glad that I didn't use the concept, now. Lol.
Welll, that was certainly a turn of events in SA… It’ll be interesting to see how all of that turns out
Well, kinda like ISIS Syria but the Holy Cities and the oil fields were protected by international forces (US took the oil lmao) and Saddam took whatever he pleased, the middle desert areas where the Saudis came from originally was the worst place to be like Taliban Wahhabism fiefdomland.
Saddam also got violently purged by the Iraqi government, in the sense he showed up at the mock trial missing a leg
Well, that went as chaotic as I expected.
This could put a damper on the Saudis supporting Islamic fundamentalists though. Blowing up a huge chunk of the Royal House tends to make it.... unpopular. And not in a 'here's some cahs, go be nuts outside of here', more of a 'Even think about it, get black bagged to a predug hole in the desert to never be seen again'.
This could put a damper on the Saudis supporting Islamic fundamentalists though. Blowing up a huge chunk of the Royal House tends to make it.... unpopular. And not in a 'here's some cahs, go be nuts outside of here', more of a 'Even think about it, get black bagged to a predug hole in the desert to never be seen again'.
From one crisis in the Middle East to another it seems. A fairly unsatisfactory conclusion for all parties involved the Arab-Israeli War but at least Israel and Iraq can both say they came out of it better than Syria.
So the state of play in Saudi Arabia is that a good portion of the senior members of the House of Saud are dead and there's a constant flow of junior members out of the country, about half the military with pretty much the entire air force is in rebellion and in control of the oil regions with a credible figurehead, the Shia population of the country is restive, and the Ikwan has lost whatever formal support it had from the conservative imams but is emboldend from it critical success that leaves the country in a poor position to actually fight them. Definately a dire situation.
It will be interesting to see which foreign powers, both neighbors and those further afield, actively get involved. Egypt kept its powder dry in the last crisis so they're fresh and Sadat has just come off of a survived assassination attempt and a fairly successful purge of religiously conservative oppostition figures so he could see getting involved as a continuation of that. The Hedjaz probably has the least amount of military forces in it now so it is rather vulberable if Egypt tried anything. Then there's Jordan with its Hashemite King; its been over half a century since the family had power in the region but there is a legacy there that gives legitamacy. Really the only neighbor that's reall couldn't attempt to involve themselves is Yemen as they are still divided. The Gulf states will be looking to protect their interests while Sadaam is definately in the market for a decisive win and the Iranians might be inclined to support the Shia populace of the country and secure more influence in the Gulf.
We do know that there isn't a long term oil price spike after this so I doubt the eastern portion of the country burns or there is a long lasting hot conflict, but the situation is in flux. Personally I hope the House of Saud crumbles and the country fractures because Latin America can't have all the countries that get screwed in this timeline.
So the state of play in Saudi Arabia is that a good portion of the senior members of the House of Saud are dead and there's a constant flow of junior members out of the country, about half the military with pretty much the entire air force is in rebellion and in control of the oil regions with a credible figurehead, the Shia population of the country is restive, and the Ikwan has lost whatever formal support it had from the conservative imams but is emboldend from it critical success that leaves the country in a poor position to actually fight them. Definately a dire situation.
It will be interesting to see which foreign powers, both neighbors and those further afield, actively get involved. Egypt kept its powder dry in the last crisis so they're fresh and Sadat has just come off of a survived assassination attempt and a fairly successful purge of religiously conservative oppostition figures so he could see getting involved as a continuation of that. The Hedjaz probably has the least amount of military forces in it now so it is rather vulberable if Egypt tried anything. Then there's Jordan with its Hashemite King; its been over half a century since the family had power in the region but there is a legacy there that gives legitamacy. Really the only neighbor that's reall couldn't attempt to involve themselves is Yemen as they are still divided. The Gulf states will be looking to protect their interests while Sadaam is definately in the market for a decisive win and the Iranians might be inclined to support the Shia populace of the country and secure more influence in the Gulf.
We do know that there isn't a long term oil price spike after this so I doubt the eastern portion of the country burns or there is a long lasting hot conflict, but the situation is in flux. Personally I hope the House of Saud crumbles and the country fractures because Latin America can't have all the countries that get screwed in this timeline.
Too much money on the line for the international community to let the house of saud fall
Yup, this might be bad enough you can make an argument for a joint USSR/USA peacekeeping operation, and it's not met with raucous laughter in the Kremlin/Pentagon.
How much Saudi money is in Western banks? Plus there is Aramco, the national oil company. News like this will hammer economies across the developing world.
Same here. The rest of what @Nevran has put out in the meantime is the safe excellent, high-quality work, but I do miss Exocet a lot, especially as it was getting closer to present day.
The Najd is indeed their power base, even today, despite it not being the majority of the Saudi population.
Ayup. The Saudis may be conservatives, but they aren't suicidally so.
And despite burning way too many MiGs, Iraq at least can claim it saved face.
Jordan seems like the most credible and obvious intervenor in the Hejaz; the piece I'm trying to work out for myself is how Egypt involves themselves in that arrangement, as a co-partner of Jordan (Sadat and the Hashemites had no love lost, especially after Camp David even as Jordan started cozying itself more up to Israel behind the scenes) or deciding to intervene entirely on its own.
How Iran can involve itself is, dare I say, pretty obvious, same for Iraq and Kuwait.
I'll touch on this in the next update more but yes, basically. There's no catastrophic spike a la 1973 or OTL 1979, but this chaos in 1982 and a more uncertain aftermath also preclude the oil glut of the 1980s from ever properly forming, and a big part of why I'm doing that is to use that as my justification for the USSR's perpetuation beyond 1991.
That, too.
There will be a multi-party peacekeeping op, though the USSR won't be part of it.
Here you go:
1969 Saudi Arabian coup attempt - Wikipedia
The type of lavish overseas funds that oil sheikhs have today wasn't as much of a thing in 1982, but yes, while the economic recovery in the West will be delayed a bit thanks to this just as it was seeing green shoots, much of the developing world is screwed yet again for many years.
Now this can produce a lot of butterflies. Aside from helping a variety of oil producing states recover faster, it definately keeps oil exploration in the US going while also making fuel efficiency stay important through the 80's and 90's. Hopefully Mexico can get a boost from this. They've taken a lot of licks.
No love lost, I’m sure.
Besides small bore stuff like “no crippling economic recession in Houston between 1985-91” you’ve basically rewritten the modern history of the Middle East with no glut on top of no Iran-Iraq War. Saddam doesn’t get punched in the nards by the collapse in oil prices and accrue massive debts, which means his relations which Kuwait stay good…
And, as you point out, Mexico and Venezuela stay stable through the decade rather than collapsing into hyperinflation. Mexico has had a smaller debt crisis earlier ITTL (1980, and we’ll be getting to its Década Perdida and 1982 PRI candidate soon) but it’s a huge boon.
Norway also doesn’t have as seesaw of an economy either, with the huge windfalls of the first half of the decade followed by the cratering revenues after 1986
I could see Arafat from a PR perspective cleverly and shamelessly using Carey’s Irish heritage and anti-apartheid stance as a way to pressure him into having to at least publicly address Palestinian grievances more than Carey would want too
In your latest update you mention Israeli air defenses shooting down Iraqi missiles. Do they do it the old school way of firing canons and hoping? Tactical ballistic missile defense wasn't really used in practice until the IOTL Gulf War and even then it wasn't very effective.
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