Effects of Soviet Dominated Middle East/Palestine?

lucullus

POD can be anything from the Soviets somehow get control of the levant during ww2. Or do so in a failed operation unthinkable. Basically, I want Soviet control over significant parts of region no later than 1946.

I’m wondering what happens to the Middle East generally—do we see Nasser or some other pan-Arab figure rise to power earlier and form a more Stalinist United Arab Republic? Do we see a Soviet puppet Kurdistan and/or expanded Armenia? What effect would a Communist Arab state have on the future development of Iran?

Also, there is the question of Israel/Palestine. Obviously there are large Jewish populations in the Soviet sphere. Israel itself also had significant Marxist presence. I’m wondering what Stalin would want to do with the territory if he controlled it, and if that includes forming a state of Israel, how the western powers (esp UK and US) would react to a Soviet-sponsored Israel.

Feel free to comment whatever comes to mind from this general prompt.

Thank you
 

Monk78

How exactly will Soviet Union dominate the Middle East if it does not have land borders there, especially without a navy bigger than RN and USN
 
Fleurs de Merde

Fleurs de Merde

Best option for this is Stalin getting the better of the Turks in the Straits Crisis, giving him full and uninhibited military access to the Eastern Mediterranean. The actual status of Turkey in this situation is entirely in the air - whether they end up as very weak neutrals or are progressively pulled into the Soviet bloc is an open question - but in either case this gives the Soviets a far freer hand when dealing with Middle East issues. I don't know about full dominance, but pair this with a definite pro-Arab stance in the Israeli war of independence and you might end up with them exerting a far stronger pull on both the Arab public and the monarchies. Alternately, they could keep to their initial policy and end up far stronger in Israel. Hard to say how this butterflies from there.

The other one would be a more Soviet-friendly resolution to the postwar crisis in Persia, either through Soviet-backed Kurdish and Azeri revolutionaries achieving their goals and gaining independent homelands or a full North-South split along the lines of occupation zones. Either of these would give the Soviets direct access to Iraq and therefore the region.

What this looks like probably depends - there are always trade-offs elsewhere - but in a universe where they end up with free Straits access and a gradual erosion of Turkish sovereignty and some sphere of influence in northern Persia, they have a hell of a lot more options.
 

Pauh the federalist

lucullus said:
Anyone else have any other opinions on how the Middle East would look like, particularly the levant?
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Eygipt was the leader of the pan Arab world for most of the cold war and in most attempts formed the nuculas of the Arab state. For how a Arab state looks it depends on how far it goes.

1. In a more limited scenario that does not achive full arab unification a arab union may look something like the otl Federation of Arab republics,
FAR_1971.png

en.m.wikipedia.org

Federation of Arab Republics - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
If Israel does not form or is beaten in this timeline referendums in Syria (and the other states)
Screenshot_20231120_150700_Chrome.jpg

seem to indicate union was overwhelming populer I would expect the southern lavant to join like thier northern nabors which would give us vary satisfying borders that overlap nicely with the New Kingdom era eygipt
Egypt_NK_edit.svg.png

en.m.wikipedia.org

New Kingdom of Egypt - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

2.looking back on those referendum numbers from the first example it seems to indicate that the idea of a pan arab union was widely popular and that the failure of these attempts likley came down to poor leadership and political disagreements. If we get a arab union with good leadership it may be able to grow to include more of the Arab world. At its maximum potential a Pan arab union that covers most of the otl nations in the arab league has the potential to become a super power in its own right in time.
Member_states_of_the_Arab_League_(orthographic_projection).svg.png

en.m.wikipedia.org

Arab League - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
For refrance to determine approximately where a pan arab near its upper limmit would stand on the world stange it would have a population larger then amarica but smaller then india however by compareing the GDP between the otl arab league members (top) and India (Bottom) we can see a arab union would be on a similar playing field to india
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Screenshot_20231120_154931_Chrome.jpg
 

lucullus

I'm going to try to focus the direction of this topic further. Let's say the allies attempt operation unthinkable and get crushed. The Soviets push them across the Rhine and occupy eastern Turkey, Iran, and create a Kurdish puppet. They continue to roll their tanks down the euphrates and Levant and install socialist/Marxist governments in the former colonial territories. Socialist/communist governments are elected in France and Britain and peace out. To keep it somewhat realistic, let's say the Soviets stop sometime before reaching the Sinai, but do occupy the Holy Land.

How do the Soviets handle the holy land? Do they give it entirely to some Pan-Arab/Ba'athist state?
 

jacob ningen

Monk78 said:
How exactly will Soviet Union dominate the Middle East if it does not have land borders there, especially without a navy bigger than RN and USN
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A delayed Revolution so Sykes Picot in the original form occurs and using ASB, Lenin doesnt have his anti-imperialism stance of OTL.
 

Cudymcar

lucullus said:
How do the Soviets handle the holy land?
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In 1945-1946 the Soviet position was one state with Jewish-Palestinian government (with reservation: "if relations between two peoples do not prove to be irrevocably hostile"). In 1947 it shifted to two-state solution. Soviet vote in the UN was crucial in adopting the partition plan.
 
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