Combined Arab state post-World War I?

So I was watching some old shows that I TiVo'd yesterday and one show had a interesting possibility. During World War I the British, got the Arab tribes to fight agains't Turkey and Germany, by promising a massive independent Arab state after the war stretching from Syria all the way to Yemen (Syria, Iraq, the Gulf States, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Yemen, Oman, Lebanon) but they ultimately split the Arab lands up to the present day borders. So could this have ultimately happened, the British went back on their promise because they didn't want one power in control of the worlds oil, (not the world oil because the US was the world's leading oil supplier I think) but if the Arabs really wanted it could they have gotten their wish and if so how would that effect the geopolitics of that time period.
 
We'd all be speaking arabic right now.

Please explain, even though a combined MidEast would be vastly more powerful and influential that OTL, they would still be far behind the other great powers and would surely be playing catch-up for a few decades.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Please explain, even though a combined MidEast would be vastly more powerful and influential that OTL, they would still be far behind the other great powers and would surely be playing catch-up for a few decades.

I'm going to guess either Eurabia or something about united Arabia being a superpower.
That or maybe the part about oil reserves, because as we all know, you can eat petrol.
 
Even without foreign meddling, of which there would be plenty, such a state would probably break up within a generation.:( Arab nationalism has always been extremely weak.
 
Keep Lord Kitchener alive, would be one prospect. The man more than likely wanted to be the first viceroy of a British Dominion of the Middle East. Perhaps greater rolls for TE Lawrence and Gertrude Bell?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Even without foreign meddling, of which there would be plenty, such a state would probably break up within a generation.:( Arab nationalism has always been extremely weak.

It would probably not lead to the same kind of profusion of small emirates of OTL. Kuwait is unlikely to be independent from Iraq, Qatar, Bahrein and the UAE would likely be part of neighbouring countries and the emirs simply be magnages. Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen are the countries imo most likely to break off from an Arab union (in order of how likely). Religious splits in the peninsula might lead to three more states (Wahhabi East, the Hejaz and Ibadhi or Shia southeast) but a united Arabia would probably not lead to such in the first place because the Saudis would be marginal.
 
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