AHC: Fewer Middle Eastern States
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Thats actually a great idea.
Depends on how many Arab states will want to join though. Here's another idea; the Ottoman Empire survives into the present day, and maybe conqueres the Rashidi and Saudi kingdoms, making them protectorates of a sort. British colonies and protectorates in the region also survive in some form into the present day. That leaves just the Ottoman Empire and Persia as the only truly independent states in the region, with Egypt being only semi-independent as a British-Ottoman puppet.
Thats actually a great idea.
Here's another idea; the Ottoman Empire survives into the present day, and maybe conqueres the Rashidi and Saudi kingdoms, making them protectorates of a sort. British colonies and protectorates in the region also survive in some form into the present day. That leaves just the Ottoman Empire and Persia as the only truly independent states in the region, with Egypt being only semi-independent as a British-Ottoman puppet.
Make the POD an alt WWI and you can just have an Arab Caliphate without having to go through colonialism.
The Ottomans are an easy solution but the OP specified no empires.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
It said no "unweildy empires"; was the Ottoman Empire really an example of this? If so, how much does it have to lose before it isn't? By 1914, the Ottomans had already lost Egypt, Libya, and the Balklands -- how difficult is it really for them to hold the rest together for another century or so?
Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
Ottoman Empire stays neutral during World War 1. After World War 1, they secure the rest of the Arabian peninsula. You have the Ottoman Empire and Persia in the middle east, and if the Ottoman Empire decides to change its name (to Arab Caliphate or something)...
The Kingdom of Syria is another good potential if it can beat the French or no Sykes-Picot in the first place.
That leaves us with Syria, Iraq, Persia, Turkey, and the Saudi's.
That leaves us with Syria, Iraq, Persia, Turkey, and the Saudi's.
They'd probably would have to defeat the UK as well. Mutual interests and all that and the fact that the Syrian claims included territory of British interest. I don't believe that the Arabs under Faisel ever had the power to force a significantly different outcome. They were easily defeated by the French OTL at Maysalun.
If no Sykes-Picot, there would probably be something analogous. It was in the very nature of the Western Powers involved to meddle. I can't really see them leaving the dispositions of the former Ottoman Empire to its own devices.
It would require some sort of falling out between the French and British, with the latter backing the Arabs for the Arab State to survive. Even then, it probably becomes some sort of client state like Iraq initially was.
Thats actually a great idea.
Here's another idea; the Ottoman Empire survives into the present day, and maybe conqueres the Rashidi and Saudi kingdoms, making them protectorates of a sort. British colonies and protectorates in the region also survive in some form into the present day. That leaves just the Ottoman Empire and Persia as the only truly independent states in the region, with Egypt being only semi-independent as a British-Ottoman puppet.
It's really hard to make an Ottoman Empire to survive to present day. They badly have to modernize or get torn apart by encroaching European powers.
How about something like what you suggest with either no or a later WW1. The Arabs eventually revolt (under either the Saudi, Rashidi, or Hashemite banner) and eventually form their own consolidated Arab state. So, 3 states, Arab, Turk, Persian.
Though, I'd like to make it 4 with a Kurdish state.
The Arabian littoral emirates are not that relevant here, they really belonged to an Indian Ocean community connected to the horn of Africa and the East African littoral. For a more political coherent Middle East, you need a neutral Ottoman empire in WWI that eventually loses Syria, Mesopotamia, Hejaz and Palestine to a true indigenous Arab revolt leading to a Hashemite kingdom (yes a Feisal-wank). After the revolt a Turkish state emerges either under the Ottomans or a military leader like Kemal. Egypt would continue to eveolve from a protectorate to a Kingdom. That gives us Turkey, Persia, the Hasemite Kingdom, sometype of Saudi Arabic state in the deserts of central and eastern Arabian Peninsula,Egypt, and the Emirates of the littoral. And Mark Sykes and his French cohort are not even footnotes in history.
Was the Ottoman Empire even the real name? It doesn't sound like something that the people living in a state would call it.
Well yeah but it's also not hard to make them modernize. I mean modernization was going at a fine pace until the war with Russia set them right back to the beginning.