AHC/WI/PC: Successful United Arab Republic That Spans Entire Arab World

Well for the most part Shi'ah only live in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Saudi. One of which is not Arab, however whether it be the Iranian revolution or the Shah, Iran will always seek to take power in Iraq regardless of Israel or Nasser. It only gets worse when you add the Salafi, who will not stand for such ideas as that espoused by Nasser. As well, Salafi were already causing problems within the Middle East by desecrating the tombs of the Ahl Al-Bayt. Also how will this republic fix the fact that Arabia proper would never join such a union as it goes against their right to rule and the fact that Salafi scholars had already proclaimed Nasser as Dar Al-Kufr. Also what happens if Israel is beat? Do the Arabs remain united? Maybe, but not likely.i

Well for there to be a UAR it is likely that the Islamic Revolution in Iran would be butterflied away, leaving either Shahist Iran (which downplayed religious elements and would therefore not promote pan-Shi'a sentiment as justification for a presence in Iraq; Tudeh, which would be Communist and USSR-aligned; or the People's Mujahedeen, which was vaguely Titoist with some Islamic elements.

Iraq was involved in a federation with Jordan during the Hashemite period. The Iranians didn't prevent that, so its less-likely they will be able or willing to commit enough resources to prevent a union between Iraq and the UAR.

Salafism isn't inherently destined to become a significant political and social force. There's any number of events that could cut short its proliferation.

The Free Princes movement had the potential to overthrow the Wahhabi monarchy in Saudi Arabia, and I have a tendency to think that without Saudi Arabia to form the keystone of the Arabian Peninsula, most of the countries there would be relatively easily-coerced into joining.
 
Well for there to be a UAR it is likely that the Islamic Revolution in Iran would be butterflied away, leaving either Shahist Iran (which downplayed religious elements and would therefore not promote pan-Shi'a sentiment as justification for a presence in Iraq; Tudeh, which would be Communist and USSR-aligned; or the People's Mujahedeen, which was vaguely Titoist with some Islamic elements.

Iraq was involved in a federation with Jordan during the Hashemite period. The Iranians didn't prevent that, so its less-likely they will be able or willing to commit enough resources to prevent a union between Iraq and the UAR.

Salafism isn't inherently destined to become a significant political and social force. There's any number of events that could cut short its proliferation.

The Free Princes movement had the potential to overthrow the Wahhabi monarchy in Saudi Arabia, and I have a tendency to think that without Saudi Arabia to form the keystone of the Arabian Peninsula, most of the countries there would be relatively easily-coerced into joining.


When was the Free Prince movement ever popular? They had some of the cadet branch as supporters and that's about it. Also make no mistake, the most powerful force in Saudi Arabia is the Al ash-Shaykh family, who gives the Saud family its legitimacy under Salafism (followed by most people except in the the east Arabian province). Without support from the clerics you do not have support amongst the common people, unless you turn over a lot of rocks change a huge amount of things.

Iran cannot just wave off on everything. Neither can the majority Shi'ah population and Ayatollahs of Iraq.

Waving off Salafism would require either no Saudi state in the Nejd or no Saudi conqeust of East Arabia (which led to its conqeust in Mekkah and Medinah). I was under the impression that this UAR was to be in between 40s-80s timeline.
 

Nocrazy

Banned
A humbled Russia and new Timur Empir-

Oh. There's an idea. Survival of the Timur Empire could result in the Arabs being more united, what with a mini Genghis Khan butchering everyone.
 
Well IMHO:

PoD:

I think that this would require a point of divergence at 1919 at the earliest. Prior to that and you get too high a chance of the Ottoman Empire surviving and Arab nationalism never getting off of the ground.

I'm not actually sure about the significance of Israel in terms of pan-Arabism. Whilst obviously the existence of Israel has had a destabilising influence on many of the Arab states, there is a strain of thought (a pretty strong one imho) that the primary vehicle for pan-Arabism popularity in the mid-to-late 20th century was Israel. Israel performed the role of the 'external enemy' that galvanised movements for Arab unity. That's why Nasser always mentioned "driving the Jews into the sea" in his speeches.

AHC:

Would a united Arab state be powerful? Absolutely. Would it have an extremely bloated bureaucracy, like India? More than likely. Furthermore, it would be unable to impose a status quo across the entire state. More likely there would be significant autonomy for different regions. Putting all the same policies in place in Syria and Egypt turned out to be a death-blow to the UAR, let alone putting them in Morocco, Yemen or Bahrain.

That being said, a coherent Arab state would be an absolute powerhouse. The only comparable energy power would be the Soviet Union, and even then they would be far behind in oil exports (natural gas would be another matter, however).

The Shi'a-Sunni divide is often overstated in debates on AH.com regarding the Arab world. During most of the twentieth century there wasn't any significant conflict between Shi'a and Sunni. The current divide is a result of the rise of Iran and the institution of the Islamic Republic there, which has led to Shi'a being seen in many Sunni-dominated Arab states as a potential fifth column. This is especially the case in the Gulf, where Bahrain is run by a Sunni monarchy with a Shi'a population, and in the North-East parts of Saudi Arabia, where most of their oil reserves are located.

It is unlikely to get a liberal-democratic state like this in the Arab world, although I could see a relatively liberal anti-imperialist 'left-Ba'ath' government in power, utilising a Majlis as a Parliament (the two are synonyms). This state would likely become the de-facto leader of the non-aligned movement and would push for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Seeing them as strongly US-aligned is difficult, seeing as the Western powers would act against the genesis of the state due to it's threat to ARAMCO and other American or British energy interests. They didn't just stand aside when Mossadegh did it in Iran, they aren't going to anywhere in the Arab world either.

I feel like such a state would diversify in a similar manner to today's Russian Federation: dependence on energy exports but also producing other goods. I doubt it would be the science/defence/engineering focus that the Russians have, but would probably be oriented around textiles, light industry (due to relative lack of large mineral resources, most of which will be acquired from Russia, Turkey and Iran via trade), finance (based in certain hubs, likely Cairo, Damascus or Baghdad) and possibly information technology as that industry emerges.

Is it possible to take a South Korea, Japan, Italy, or Spain economic route?
 
For some reason, Chad simply isn't considered to be a part of the 'Arab World', despite their local version of Arabic (Chadian Arabic) being the lingua franca of the nation. I guess it comes down to cultural ties here; I mean, Chad has never really involved itself in the 'traditional Arab circle', and has been way more active in the sub-Saharan region than in North Africa.
The reason they and Somalia are often excluded is because they are black.
 
If the UAR became THAT successful in getting the Arab world together into one nation I wonder how foreign powers would react.

Also can it pull off an economic miracle? Can it become a democracy?
 
This is one possible result of the British keeping their promise to the Arabs (that is there was no Sykes-Picot Agreement and Balfour Declaration or it broke those promises instead) and creating an Arab state out of Turkish Arabia.

It would effectively be Greater Iraq because King Faisal of Iraq would instead be King Faisal of (Hashemite) Arabia with the same system of government as Iraq IOTL. It would be a League of Nations Mandate from 1920 to 1932 and from then on an independent kingdom until the revolution of 1958.

There is the possibility of a war between the Hashemites and the Sauds in the 1920s for control of the Hejaz, which the former would win resulting in what became Saudi Arabia IOTL being annexed by Hashemite Arabia. The British then persuaded their protectorates in the Persian Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and what became the UAE) to join Hashemite Arabia because they thought it was a good idea in itself and they thought it might placate the Arab nationalists.

Meanwhile the British bribe the Egyptian Government into declaring war on the Axis in 1940 by promising them Libya and the Sudan. This doesn't stop the Egyptian Revolution happening so that the UAR is still created in 1958 but ITTL consists of Greater Egypt, Greater Iraq and North Yemen.

The new state has lots of teething problems, but unlike the real UAR doesn't break up in 1961 and survives to this day. During that period Algeria, Tunisia and South Yemen might have joined.

Would the people of this fictional UAR be better of politically, economically and culturally? I simply don't know.
 
Really, the only way to achieve such a feat is to butterfly away Israel (perhaps the British decide against creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine?). The Arab losses during the Arab-Israeli Wars are part of the reason Pan-Arabism fell out of favor. Even then, you'd have to take things like provincialism and power struggles between the different Pan-Arab leaders into consideration.

Ibn Saud once suggested to Franklin D. Roosevelt that a Jewish homeland be established by carving out a piece of Germany. He argued that because the Germans committed the Holocaust they should be the ones who should have to give up land. Not the Arabs.

What if that happened instead?

Fun Fact: Ho Chi Minh also once offered David Ben-Gurion a Jewish sanctuary in Vietnam.
 
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