AHC: Earlier rise of Islamism

Anchises

Banned
From my point of view Islamism was starting to get successful once (Pan-)Arab Nationalism and Socialism were spent ideologies, after decades of cleptocratic and inefficient rule and repeated Israeli victories. Once the Baathist regimes were sufficiently "hollowed out" external influences (*cough USA cough*) or even internal crisis allowed Islamists to embark on semi-succesful projects of nation building. In other places like Egypt Islamists enjoyed electoral success or were able to build efficient quasi-states like Hamas or to a degree the Hezbollah.

So what could be PODs for an earlier rise of Islamism? To clarify: The Islamic Revolution in Iran surely counts and there were several political parties/terrorist groups long before ISIS. What I am talking about is a Middle East where Islamism is a/the driving force of Middle Eastern politics like it seems to be today IOTL. (subjective I know)

ideas:

1) In the Yom Kippur War the Arabs do something dumb that allows the Israelis to turn the war from a victorious defense into a full fledged victory. Maybe using chemical weapons against Israeli formations, or something like this. The Superpowers also intervene later for some ATL reasons. Maybe Israeli recieves earlier and more robust U.S. support too.

Point is: Israel is more successful.Taking parts of Damascus and capturing all of the Egyptian forces on the Israeli side of the channel on a more permanent basis.

Syria is weakened enough to allow an Islamist uprising that plunges the country into a Civil War decades early. And in Egypt Saddat never has his "victory". Saddat still attempts to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel and triggers a full fledged Islamist uprising that the weakened army can't deal with easily.

2) Iran is more successful in the Iraq-Iran war. Successful enough to triger Shiite uprisings against Saddam, the Kurds ofc also join. Iraq fractures and Iran is able to create a puppet faction of Shiite Islamists in the ensuing Civil War.

3) The USA invades Saudi Arabia to break the OPEC embargo. Maybe Vietnam wasn't a clusterfuck ITTL.

They don't occupy Mecca and Medina but the presence of U.S. troops so close to the holy cities is enough to start major Islamist movements on the Arab Peninsula. The blatant Imperialism and the prospect of huge oil revenues for the Saudi successor also help to fuel the ensuing firestorm....

What do you think of my ideas?

Are there other good PODs for earlier Islamism?

How would this Islamism differ from OTLs Islamism? A weird hybrid of Socialism and Islamism like in Lybia?

More focused on Islamist Nation states instead of rebuilding a Caliphate?

Less terror and more conventional military methods?
 
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i would go back into the Great War and the attempt to buttress the Ottoman war effort with renewal of Islamic fervor, call for Jihad and rhetoric of loyalty to the Caliphate. That Jinn once let loose might not be contained in an Ottoman victory under an ATL CPs "victory" since the OE is not broken apart. Arab nationalism will be suppressed but Islam itself promoted to bind the Empire. Oil wealth will float at the top. You can draw the same parallels to all the misrule OTL but decades earlier. But instead of a Balkanized Islamic world it is more whole, perhaps Iran still goes revolutionary, maybe it is the messier Indian independence, but the switch to an Islamic versus secularized state might occur before the 1970s, spreading faster over the Ottoman state. And you can still have Western interventions, conflict between Islam and Judaism and Christianity, the ethnic communities bootstrapping that identity into a religious one too. The Greeks, the Russians, the British, even the French and Germans or Americans have cause to interfere in the Middle East once oil becomes so vital.
 

Ian_W

Banned
One of the issues with an early rise of Islamism is that they are likely to be the ones crunched by the Israelis, as the same social pressures and so on that lead to the very bad Middle Eastern armies are still there.

Arguably, it was the failure of the Islamist Ottoman armies before 1918 that led to the rise of the Young Turks, who were (and are) the model for the secular nationalists in the Middle East.
 

Anchises

Banned
The islamist uprising in the 80's in Syria is one spot. The government losing the battle in Hama

I don't see that happening without a weakened Army/Republican Guards though.

One of the issues with an early rise of Islamism is that they are likely to be the ones crunched by the Israelis, as the same social pressures and so on that lead to the very bad Middle Eastern armies are still there.

Arguably, it was the failure of the Islamist Ottoman armies before 1918 that led to the rise of the Young Turks, who were (and are) the model for the secular nationalists in the Middle East.

True, there is a small timeframe where earlier Islamists would (mostly) avoid crushing defeats against Israel if they don't start wars against Israel. After 1973 Egypt and Syria had learned their lesson. So in the mid and late 70s might be a good time.

Good point with the Islamist Armies. I would even argue that the fall of the Ottoman Empire as a whole was crucial. After that religious and conservative regimes were seen as anachronistic and weak by Middle Eastern intellectuals and political activists.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Also, there's another faction to consider - democrats. No, really, they are important in Iraq because al-Sistani is one, and he is the foremost leader of the Shi'a in Iraq.

Briefly, he believes that Iranian style Government by the Jurisprudent is dangerous because it distracts the clergy away from care of souls by directly putting them in government. He also believes that tyranny is hated by God, and the best way to avoid tyranny is to have the people select their own government in regular democratic elections.

In OTL, he essentially won the peace in Iraq, and the system works the way he thinks it should. This included winning the war against the Sunni Islamists of AQ and ISIS, which he did by telling Shi'a to join the army and popular mobilisation units.
 

Anchises

Banned
Also, there's another faction to consider - democrats. No, really, they are important in Iraq because al-Sistani is one, and he is the foremost leader of the Shi'a in Iraq.

Briefly, he believes that Iranian style Government by the Jurisprudent is dangerous because it distracts the clergy away from care of souls by directly putting them in government. He also believes that tyranny is hated by God, and the best way to avoid tyranny is to have the people select their own government in regular democratic elections.

In OTL, he essentially won the peace in Iraq, and the system works the way he thinks it should. This included winning the war against the Sunni Islamists of AQ and ISIS, which he did by telling Shi'a to join the army and popular mobilisation units.

I don't think it would be too ASB to replace him with someone else or too give him a different character.

Hell, if we have Democrats who enact Sharia Law and govern like Islamists with majority approval, they would still be Islamists in my book. Just a different bunch than the ones IOTL.
 
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