Hardcore update about the destruction of the New Left. Looks like we're gonna see a viable third party in the Progressives.
New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
More the radical left than the new left.
What do you think of the SLA crime Spree?
Quite a bit. I also like how your four ideological currents within the U.S. also reflect Russell-Mead's four schools of foreign policy: Washingtonian isolationism [TTL progressives], Hamiltonian trade/balancing [liberty conservatives], Wilsonian democracy promotion [Freyists] and the Jacksonian preference for full-scale war [communinationalists].
I really like liberty conservatism, but worry it will end up getting marginalized by the populist nationalist Democrats and the isolationist big government social liberal progressives.
Actually TTL progressives- known as minaprogressives- are small government social liberal progressives.
Freyism hasn't really caught on in the United States, though a lot of people across the spectrum believe in it's base tenets (spreading democracy). in reality, it's more of a reverse-Trotskyism, just substitute Communism for democracy.
Small government with regards to social, civil, and cultural issues. They are somewhere between Rockefeller Republicans and Communonationalists on economics (reflecting their Bull Moose Progressive tradition), though there is a small government economic wing.
I am not understanding how you're defining minaprogressivism. You said that Chomsky described a doctrine of libertarian socialism as minaprogressivism but that's not how libertarian socialism works at all.
Though I do understand what you mean, minaprogressives are not minarchists at all it's just social liberalism with a new name.
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Reading more about libertarian socialism, it actually fits that guideline far more in the economic sphere though Minaprogressives are to leftist economic policy what Liberty Conservatism are to social conservatism (are supportive of it but are skeptical of government intervention).
Although, the fundamental shift in both the left and the ITTL libertarian movement is that it is becoming associated with social issues rather than economic ones
As libertarian socialism is a minarchist and at some points even anti-statist ideology that seeks to create a direct democracy.
Crossroads of the World
Following the military defeat and implosion of the United Arab Republic during the October War, the only regional power – sans Israel – left in the Middle East was Imperial Iran. Ruled over by Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteštārān, the nation’s vaunted oil wealth allowed it to import all manners of western technology and advisors. Modernization was underway, building a former backwater into a regional power once more. President George Wallace would often say that Iran and Israel (with their powerful armies) were his “Unsinkable aircraft carriers right up against the Soviet underbelly.”
However, the industrializing nation and its modern army and navy hid what was a fair amount of rot that plaugued the Iranian Monarchy and the western-style bureaucracy that managed it for them. Patronage and corruption infected the entire system like a cancer, military and domestic programs ran as massive graft schemes that funneled money into Swiss bank accounts for the senior-most officials – one famous story involved the Empress Farah declining to purchase a necklace due to the excessive price, only to hear it had been purchased subsequently by the wife of the Commander of the Imperial Navy. The following investigation resulted in rooting out eighty percent of the naval hierarchy for gross corruption, only for most of the replacements to be just as corrupt as their predecessors.
The Shah, viewed as a strong autocrat by the West, was in reality quite a weak and middling man (unlike his father). He was persistently fearful of losing his title and uniquely unqualified to running a major country, despite the strong powers that the throne itself possessed. Advice was given by the crop of yes-men that he surrounded himself with, most of them as manipulative as snakes which only continued the corruption around him.
As such, it was quite the shock when after the death of longtime Prime Minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda from malaria during a state visit to Brazil when the Shah appointed Ismael Shafae to the position. A Russian Cossack rather than an Iranian (born in the former Russian Empire and a well-decorated cavalryman during WWI for the Tsar), he had been the longtime childhood companion of the Shah’s father – Reza Khan having been raised in Shafae’s father’s household. Minister of Court for nearly fifteen years, he had resisted the influence of the corrupt faction led by the Shah’s twin sister Ashraf to be appointed Foreign Minister. He would distinguish himself in that position with the promulgation of the mutual defense treaty with Pakistan and the victory in the 1967 Indo-Pakistani War. A father figure to the Shah, he would often seek out Shafae’s counsel, him being the one person who would state the unfiltered truth.
It was into this world that he assumed the title of Prime Minister in April 1970.
Shafae was beloved by the people for his caring nature and devotion to their wellbeing, the Prime Minister greenlighting large expenditures to improving infrastructure and schooling for the common folk. A nationwide system for social security was established, academics brought in from the United States to assist in its establishment. However, Shafae was a diehard Monarchist and resisted any form of liberalization of the nation. Power was retained with the Shah, whose approval was needed for any of the Prime Minister’s projects.
The alliance with the United States, renewed and even expanded under Shafae (his son-in-law being the military attaché to Washington), brought out new enemies to the crown. Not the Monarchy’s strongest allies to begin with, the Islamic clerics under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for a general strike in 1973 against the Government in response to the American alliances and the continued secularization of the government. The Prime Minister would have none of it, ensuring that the normally weak Shah would give the order to send in the army. The strikers were put down, usually without a shot but with several firefights breaking out. Khomeini and his associates were arrested and convicted of treason. All except for Khomeini were exiled to France (Massu agreeing to take them), the holy man executed by firing squad on Shafae’s orders. Islamist thinking in Iran had been squelched, Shafae earning the moniker Ghazaak, loosely translated as “the strong Cossack.”
Imperial Iran at this time would be known as the “Bully of the Middle East.”
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Pan-Arabism had been dealt a terrible – some would argue a fatal blow – with the collapse of the UAR and the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Salah Jadid. Israel and the United Kingdom leaving in their wake what was once a hopeful movement a charred corpse, the various kingdoms and military republics that rushed in like the rising tide began the inevitable jockeying for power in the vacuum. Iran, undergoing its own internal reforms, was unwilling to meddle, and the UK and US were content as long as Israel was left alone, oil continued to flow, and the Soviets were kept out of the region. Therefore, the various governments were left to their own devices. The Arab world seemed destined to return to the days of old before the postwar revolutions.
All of this was changed with the rise of Ba’athism. Developed largely by the writings of Syrian intellectual Michel Aflaq, the ideology dictated that the Arab people needed to be united into a socialist state founded on principles of nationalization (though no mass collectivization as seen in Stalinist USSR) and the overthrow of the old ruling classes, and supported the creation of a secular society by separating Islam from the state. The ideology presented itself as representing the "Arab spirit against materialistic communism" and "Arab history against dead reaction." After the destruction of the UAR, many Ba’athists would retool the doctrine to call for a federation of states rather than one unified state, bowing to the reality of the times.
Ba’athism found its first test case in Syria, where it was adopted by Hafez al-Assad as the governing ideology of the post-UAR successor state. Though the intellectual founders would wish distance from either of the superpower blocs, Assad would strengthen ties with Semichastny’s Soviet Union, Jiang Qing’s China, and Indira Gandhi’s India in his move to consolidate the battered nation (Israel having nearly reached Damascus) and spread Ba’athism to the Middle East. Movements would develop in Libya, Yemen, Kuwait, Sudan, and Qatar, though the next jumping off point was undoubtedly Iraq.
Since put under British protection since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the moribund Hashemite dynasty (related to the Jordanian Royal Family) had ruled over Iraq. Their rule, currently under King Faisal II, had not been stable. The Hashemite Kings were weak and the steady succession of coup attempts had taken their toll. Iraq in the early 1970s was mostly propped up by aid from the Anglo-American bloc, Iran, and Jordan – ripe pickings for the Ba’athists. Exiled by the Kingdom’s security forces in 1964, the Iraqi Regional Affiliate of the Ba’ath Party had squabbled for years in Damascus on who to select as a leader. Eventually, young party member and Tikrit street urchin turned revolutionary Saddam Hussein emerged out of the crowded field. Secure in his position, by late 1973 he, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, and Sa’dun Hammadi (allies and members of the party membership) began to plot a move to return to Iraq and overthrow the Kingdom in favor of a Ba’athist state.
The plan was set in motion in the wee morning hours of May 27th, 1973. Having entered Iraq secretly on a diplomatic flight chartered by President Assad and the Syrian Foreign Ministry, Saddam, al-Bakr, and the others were picked up by sympathetic Iraqi Army officer, Field Marshal Abdul Araf and whisked away to a base in central Baghdad where they would wait out the day. As dusk began to set, the coup was set in motion. A battalion of mechanized infantry converged on the Royal Palace and stormed it. Bodies of the Royal Guard left in their wake, the Major in command personally executed King Faisal and the Queen, both of them sitting at dinner alone in their residence.
Once the majority of the military followed within the week, the writing was on the wall. Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah never left Amman, later moving to London where he would assert his claim for the remainder of his life. Saddam was accepted as the rightful Head of State of the newly-proclaimed Republic of Iraq. Dozens of world leaders would be invited to Baghdad for his swearing in ceremony and inaugural ball, Iraq joining the ranks of the new Ba’athist movement solidifying itself on the ashes of the UAR and Nasserism.
Saddam Hussein would inaugurate his ascension to power with a flourish. A great admirer of Stalin, the lead ranks of the party that had brought him to the Presidency were rounded up by loyal forces in a lighting purge in July. Al-Bakr, Hammadi, Talib Shabib and a dozen others were all shot on personal orders from Saddam, their ranks replaced with tribal associates from Tikrit and personal allies. The move would backfire one day, but for now, Saddam Hussein was the undisputed dictator of Iraq. The world would see far more of him.
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Largely eclipsed by his foreign policy and governmental structural reforms, Menachem Begin’s first term as Prime Minister had accomplished quite a lot for the State of Israel. As the nation’s first rightist government, the coalition had gone a long way to liberalizing the socialist policies of the previous two decades of Mapai governments. Following these reforms and the massive victories brought by the military in the Yom Kippur War (including one third of all the custom duties of the Suez Canal), the economy boomed as Begin pushed for greater investment in infrastructure and pro-growth policies out of the Knesset. His favorability with the public skyrocketed as a result.
With such ratings, Begin and coalition leader David Ben Gurion (former leftist and the first Prime Minister of Israel) had enough clout to push the latter’s political reform plan through the famously fractured legislature in 1972. As such, the entire landscape of the Israeli political scene had changed. Whereas a proportional system had once been, now rested a constituency first-past-the-post system modeled after the UK House of Commons. Ben Gurion had argued it for years as a means to increase governmental stability, and had gotten his wish.
Scrambling to adjust, the clusters of political parties (mostly narrowly tailored to specific blocs of voters to take advantage of the proportional elections) began to coalesce into large consensus parties as was the hallmark in the US and UK. Gahal, Begin’s party, absorbed the National Front, Agudat Yisrael, and Poalei Agudat Yisrael while Mapai – having selected Yitzhak Rabin as its leader following Golda Meir’s election as UN Secretary General – merged with the center-left Rafi. Once the National Religious Party broke its coalition with Gahal due to the latter’s move to further deregulate the economy and eliminate consumer subsidies with the increased economic growth, Begin was forced to call a general election for 1973.
Barely a year after the election, new defense issues began to rear their ugly head once more. While Jordan had been at peace with Israel since 1967, and Egypt was focused internally under the friendly regime of Anwar Sadat, Syria and Lebanon were another story entirely. While having muddled along under a Maronite Christian/Sunni Muslim coalition government since the French Fourth Republic left its former colony, the arrival of Yasser Arafat and the PLO from their exile from Jordan (with UAR backing) caused the government to topple into an uneasy anarchy between Christian militias and the PLO/Syrian-backed puppet rulers that controlled Beirut but little else. The Palestinians owned the entire southern third of the nation, launching rockets and periodic terrorist raids into Israel.
Not wanting to plunge Israel into another conflict so soon after the Yom Kippur War (concentrating on settling the Sinai and Golan to turn them fully Israeli), by fall 1974 Begin had had enough. The aging and frail Ben Gurion, still soldiering on, was sent to Damascus and Beirut to try and hammer out a diplomatic solution but was rebuffed. Assad was trying to prove himself, while in Lebanon the PLO controlled the strength. After a terse phone conversation with President Wallace and Prime Minister Crossman – the US and UK being Israel’s top allies – in which their support was affirmed, Begin instructed Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Northern Front Commander Ariel Sharon to launch Operation Cedar.
Unlike in the Yom Kippur War, where immense US/UK/French pressure and hatred of the Nasserist, Jadidist UAR kept them neutral (plus many had their pro-western regimes replaced in coups such as Iraq and Libya), the Arab countries weren’t staying silent at this. All except Egypt and Jordan jointly sent messages to Richard Helms and James Callaghan to pressure Israel to withdraw. When these were rebuffed, the gloves came off. Five days following the invasion of Lebanon, OPEC artificially raised the price of oil to $4.50 a barrel. The 1974 Energy Crisis had begun.
So no Qassim coup in 1959?
That's going to change things quite a bit actually. Nuri al-Said probably died some time ago, meaning the monarchy's been on thin ice for a rather long time. It also means the Kurds aren't warn out by a decade of fighting already. I anticipate a Kurdish rebellion under Mustafa Barzani, backed by the U.S. and Iran as in OTL, and probably with substantial British and Israeli advisors since the former are throwing their weight around more.
The real wild card is the Shia population; I wonder if any of the Iranian exiles will find their way there and start causing problems a bit earlier, what with Saddam's sudden rise to power?
And Jordan's going to be much more anti-Saddam than OTL; killing one's cousins has that effect.
You know, part of the reason the OPEC embargo worked is that Nixon and Kissinger weren't willing to use gun-boat diplomacy. It occurs to me that Wallis... might not have that reluctance, particularly given that he won Vietnam. The embargo is a much much bigger gamble for the Arabs ITTL. Particularly the gulf monarchies; Wallis isn't the forgive and forget type, and getting bullied by "a couple of desert sheikhs" doesn't send the message Wallis wants to send about himself or the U.S.
That's going to change things quite a bit actually. Nuri al-Said probably died some time ago, meaning the monarchy's been on thin ice for a rather long time. It also means the Kurds aren't warn out by a decade of fighting already. I anticipate a Kurdish rebellion under Mustafa Barzani, backed by the U.S. and Iran as in OTL, and probably with substantial British and Israeli advisors since the former are throwing their weight around more.
The real wild card is the Shia population; I wonder if any of the Iranian exiles will find their way there and start causing problems a bit earlier, what with Saddam's sudden rise to power?
And Jordan's going to be much more anti-Saddam than OTL; killing one's cousins has that effect.
You know, part of the reason the OPEC embargo worked is that Nixon and Kissinger weren't willing to use gun-boat diplomacy. It occurs to me that Wallis... might not have that reluctance, particularly given that he won Vietnam. The embargo is a much much bigger gamble for the Arabs ITTL. Particularly the gulf monarchies; Wallis isn't the forgive and forget type, and getting bullied by "a couple of desert sheikhs" doesn't send the message Wallis wants to send about himself or the U.S.
Jordan is very much in the Western camp, though they are more pro-British than pro-American in that respect. The government has good relations with Israel after the Treaty of Amman.
Saddam will have his own problems, and while Wallace would likely resort to gunboat diplomacy, things will transpire in the future to make that difficult.
