Challenge: Middle Eastern bloc is superpower

With a POD of no earlier than 1939, create a scenario where a Middle Eastern bloc revolving around an ideology more than anti-Israel has minor superpower status.

Points if you can do this within the context of a Three-Way Cold War or a cold war involving nazis.
 
With a POD of no earlier than 1939, create a scenario where a Middle Eastern bloc revolving around an ideology more than anti-Israel has minor superpower status.

Points if you can do this within the context of a Three-Way Cold War or a cold war involving nazis.

Well, it loses points, but Hitler loses early and big-time (so no Israel) combined with a more successful Pan-Arab movement has some possibilities.

Bruce
 
Actually, for a three-block cold war, an Algeria-Iraq [1] United Arab Republic might make a decent leader for a third-world coalition with an "a plague on both your houses" attitude towards the US and USSR.

Bruce

[1] No way the US stands for the incorporation of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, whose aristocratic leadership certainly don't want any part of an Arab Union that's both secular and not led by them.
 
Pan-Arabism actually makes it big, and instead of collapsing, the UAR goes on to incorporate Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. With time, Libya might join, and then maybe Algeria, and eventually the rest of North Africa (not crazy likely). This strong UAR should be able to conquer the Arabian Peninsula if they strike before the US starts propping Saudi Arabia to ridiculous levels.

While Israel is useful here as an external enemy, the unifying fact is "We're all Arabs" rather than "We all hate Israel".

While this power almost certainly won't be a third side on the Cold War (having a large, strong, not very friendly Arab state will preclude strong dependence on Middle Eastern oil), they'll definitely be a regional power not to fuck with, along the lines of India and China in the 60s.
 
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