AH Challenges:

Hashasheen

Banned
AH Challenges:
Create a powerful Ireland.
Create an Independent Quebec
Create a powerful Spain.
improve the hashimete base of power beyond jordan

AH questions:
could japan's position be improved , by not invading china, but still advancing into the pacific, and focusing on the imperial navy?
what if the iranian islamic revolution had spread, and created 4 similiar republics in iraq, baharain, lebanon and yemen?
 
Well, since you place this after 1900...the pandemic of 1918 could be a factor here. The pandemic strikes England very hard, heirs to the British throne and various politicians die earlier, the resulting chaos makes Britain more unable and unwilling to fight over Ireland, so Ireland goes isolationist and avoids the pandemic. The pandemic also strikes Canada, and Quebecois nationalists, disgusted with the way the government is handling it, secedes and the Canadians let them, since they don't feel like fighting either.

How powerful do you want Spain? Franco was strong enough to be a potential ally for either the Allies or the Axis. Though in this timeline WW II would be butterflied away. Maybe whoever was in charge in Spain managed to impose a quarantine and they also avoided the pandemic, so by the time the pandemic is over, Spain is the strongest country in Europe. They take advantage of the situation. Maybe they organize a "European Union" which is dominated by Spain.

A member of the Hashemite dynasty attends Harvard University and makes friends with wealthy young men who are scions of various families who got rich in oil. They make social and business connections which result in the Hashemites having major business interests in the Arabian peninsula. You didn't specify oil wealth; the Hashemites might get their wealth, power and political influence from other sources, selling goods and services to people in the oil industry, land ownership, marriage into important families in the region.

The British are in a much weaker position in this timeline, and the Hashemites have a free hand to deal with the Zionists as they wish. Without the Nazis, the Arabs and Jews don't have that to split them on opposing sides. There isn't a diaspora from Europe to the Mideast, though the Zionists are still looking for a homeland. The Hashemites sell individual plots of land for setting up semi-autonomous kibbutzim, and the people in the region get along a lot better.

The US is in a weaker position because of the pandemic, and maybe they stayed out of WW I. So they're looking for new frontiers and sources of income.

During this period, there were still racial quotas on immigration to the US. There weren't many Asians allowed in, but there were some, and many stayed in their own neighborhoods. One entrepreneur with Japanese ancestry wants to use his American contacts to help his Japanese relatives and their countrymen. So he builds a real estate empire, owning land in Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti and many other islands of the Pacific--he builds restaurants, hotels, golf courses, etc. They cater to Americans as well as Japanese. Japanese presence in the Pacific grows dramatically.

I had the impression your question about Japan goes in the same timeline as the challenges.

The Islamic Revolution spreading would probably get a more recent POD, but I can't think of anything for it.

That's all I can think of.

:)

EDIT: I was assuming you were expecting the challenges to be in the same timeline, but they don't have to be.

But assuming they are in the same timeline...
After the pandemic, Ireland takes advantage of the situation to exert political and economic dominance over the British Isles, and they start getting business interests on the Continent.

A Europe with Ireland and Spain as the two superpowers would be interesting and different. There could be an Irish-Spanish cold war brewing. The Irish would be the democratic, liberal head of the Allied powers, and Spain could be the fascist dictatorship trying to take over Europe. Or could it be the other way around? :)
 
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