AHC: Post 1967 Arab Unification

With a POD after the end of the Six Day War, unite the following countries under a secular regime: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait. Complete the unification by the mid 1970s. Accomplish this without triggering wars with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or NATO. The regime does not have to be Ba'athist specifically, but would have at least some sort of pan-arab socialist ideology. The new state should have a "break" with Egypt along the lines of the Sino-Soviet split. Libya can be considered an ally, but a rather embarassing one with Qaddafi's personality cult. Algeria is also an ally of this state but their interests are considered too far apart by Algeirs for any serious talk of full integration. Sudan, and the new regimes in Somalia and Ethiopia are friendly with the new state, particularly Sudan and Somalia, but their interests also lie primarily in Africa and not the Middle East itself. The new state is vigorously involved in the civil war in Yemen, hoping for a regime to emerge that is interested in it's pan arab leftist goals. It backs revolutionary movements in the remaining arab kingdoms, including distant Tunisia and Morocco. It is part of OPEC, but the arab monarchies view it as their arch enemy. It cautiously grants very limited autonomy to the Kurds. It heavily represses religious extremists. By the early 1980s, it seems war is possible with it's neighbors...

What would the barebones of a TL look like for this?
 
OTL, after the '67 War there was even a brief attempt at a Syria/Egypt/Sudan federation. It failed due to internal nationalistic dissent. I think the particular countries you want linked up are even more disparate and more difficult to unite than this actual abortive effort.
 
My guess would be military officers in multiple countries covertly cooperating to launch simultaneous or nearly simultaneous coups then merge their countries soon afterwards according to their pre coup agreements. If you can only make it last 5 years, so be it, but the hope of the challenge was to find a way to make a viable, resilient, and relatively strong and influential secular arab state. If you need to include "conflicts" and skirmishes, but not all out war for the unification process, that's okay i guess.

Indeed, the FAR and the earlier UAR are the inspirations for this ATL challenge. In the FAR, not only sudan was added to the traditional egypt-syria duo, but also libya and almost iraq. With lebanon eventually becoming dominated by syrian influence, it could've been a mighty force if it had actually unified. For this ATL, the african members of the FAR do not need to be included, though they can become close allies of the mesopotamian republic. Except for egypt which should still drift into the western camp, perhaps with a non-ideological/ somewhat conservative military junta taking power there.

Kuwait and Jordan on the other hand would've required coups/ revolutions/ liberations. The other gulf states would've freaked out at the loss of those two countries. The oil from Kuwait would add alot of economic weight to this "Mesopotamian" Arab state. Jordan would grant it access to the Red Sea, a united front surrounding the "zionist regime," and a larger internal area further away from all hostile neighbors. The united large population of "Socialist Mesopotamia" (working title; please find something better:)) would also be formidable against Israeli tech, Saudi Money, Iranian numbers, and to a lesser degree Turkey and its NATO allies if they ever launched a conventional invasion (perhaps in some Gulf War analogue...).
 
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RousseauX

Donor
With a POD after the end of the Six Day War, unite the following countries under a secular regime: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait. Complete the unification by the mid 1970s. Accomplish this without triggering wars with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or NATO. The regime does not have to be Ba'athist specifically, but would have at least some sort of pan-arab socialist ideology. The new state should have a "break" with Egypt along the lines of the Sino-Soviet split. Libya can be considered an ally, but a rather embarassing one with Qaddafi's personality cult. Algeria is also an ally of this state but their interests are considered too far apart by Algeirs for any serious talk of full integration. Sudan, and the new regimes in Somalia and Ethiopia are friendly with the new state, particularly Sudan and Somalia, but their interests also lie primarily in Africa and not the Middle East itself. The new state is vigorously involved in the civil war in Yemen, hoping for a regime to emerge that is interested in it's pan arab leftist goals. It backs revolutionary movements in the remaining arab kingdoms, including distant Tunisia and Morocco. It is part of OPEC, but the arab monarchies view it as their arch enemy. It cautiously grants very limited autonomy to the Kurds. It heavily represses religious extremists. By the early 1980s, it seems war is possible with it's neighbors...

What would the barebones of a TL look like for this?
It can't, 1967 was really the breaking point for Nasserism. As it turns out, Arab secular nationalism failed to fulfill its promise of building up strong, prosperous states and the 6 day war laid that bare. Pan-Arabism simply doesn't have the credibility to do this after 1967.
 
This rather belongs to future history.

IMHO, it is only possible post-Arab spring. Beforehands, you have the power in the hands of
a) military cliques
b) dominant tribe leaders
c) monarchs
d) a combination of a/b/c

These are, to differing degrees, structurally unable to work in a federation which leaves them with less power than within the national realm.

The failure of the UAR proves this.

Only if these states are led by "democratically elected" leaders which happen to have enough ideological common ground (that would most probably mean "not-too-extreme Islam-Democrats", somewhere between the positions of the Egyptian president and the Turkish AKP), such a Union could evolve in terms of a kind of "Arab Union" to be modelled after the EU or initially rather after the UNASUR).

I could imagine that such a union would integrate its armed forces rather more readily than the Europeans, though against the wishes of the military, simply in order to neutralize the political position of their army leaders.
 
Let's say, for instance, that the 50s Western Coup in Iran fails, and eventually Iran beta a Soviet leaning government. Would the threat of Communist spread in the Middle East help push for a united Arab state? It's a bit earlier than the AHC, but I've always wondered about this?
 
roussoux: is there anyway nasserism, or something similar, could've been revived after 67? Perhaps an alternate black september where jadid prevails over assad and the intervention in jordan turns into a complete overthrow of the monarchy there? from this, arab secularism becomes more emboldened militarily and more leftist with jadid's support by communists? Syria-Jordan then launches an internal coup within the iraqi ba'athist party against hussein to place someone there who would agree to unification, perhaps on the condition that power would be centered in neither damascus nor baghdad, but in a smaller central town near their pre-merge border? Maybe even agreement to construct a new capital in such an area to diffuse resentment of perceived dominance by one faction over the other? Then Syria-Jordan-Iraq, already a much stronger state than any of the previous three countries on their own, could destablizie, dominate, and quite possibly invade (ahem, "intervene" or "liberate") Lebanon and Kuwait.

The problem of cultural differences between Syrian Arabs, Jordanian Arabs, Iraqi Arabs, etc could be approached with an intense drive to create a united arab, atleast mesopotamian arab, secular culture with heavily enforced standardized language, popular media, clothing, food etc. Basically authoritarian cultural conformity policies that even in the likely event of encountering staunch local resistance, would attempt to "fake it till you make it" for perhaps a generation or two. If of course the state could last that long against the threat of war with its neighbors, and economic isolation and decline.

Hornla: definitely looking for a 60s/ 70s style radical secular arab state. not a contemporary arab spring moderate islamist one.

DanMcCollum: That's an interesting proposal except that this new arab state would itself be very left leaning, though probably not outright communist, but certainly in the broader red bloc of the cold war. Also, one concept of the ATL would be to have such a strong state aligned against the same, or similar, opponents that the secular states IOTL faced, arguably weakened by their disunity: Israel (backed by the west), Turkey (NATO member and the West), Saudi Arabia (Monarchist, financially strong, religious, western camp), and Iran (either western backed pahlavi regime, or anti western and anti communist theocratic khomeini regime, but NOT a soviet backed communist regime)
 
Well, if you have the Egypt-Libya-Syria-Sudan federation hold together, and then have it join some analogue to Gaddafi's planned Libya-Tunisia-Algeria federation, you'd be on the right track. How to do that is beyond me though. I will say that i've always found Gaddafi a good one to turn to for pan-Arabism.

Any large enough federation including Syria could theoretically occupy and annex Lebanon without foreign powers getting too worried.
 
You guys are not placing enough thought regarding the very real cultural and in some cases, religious, differences in those countries.
As was mentioned earlier, Nasserism was thoroughly discredited by the "67 War. Nasserism was the best bet for at least some of these countries to come together for a time. At best, it would be temporary---all those cultural and religious differences would have eventually blown it apart. By 1973, the regained Egyptian self-confidence after the Yom Kippur War would preclude Egyptian nationalism from giving ground to anything more than a symbolic federation. Lebanon? Near ASB.
You would need a POD that started back as early as the end of WW1. Perhaps a different divvying up of the spoils in the Versailles conferences could have created a more fertile environment for a lasting Pan-Arabism. Or WW2 and particularly, the Arab response to it, plays out differently.
 
Any large enough federation including Syria could theoretically occupy and annex Lebanon without foreign powers getting too worried.

The West had a history of directly intervening in Lebanese affairs. The West had and has interests in the country. I would expect more of the same. Syria tried to annex Lebanon OTL. The Lebanese eventually threw them out.
 
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