Shuffling Hashemite brothers - WI: French make deal w/Feisal, he gets Syria, Abdullah gets Iraq

raharris1973

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In 1923 or 1924 the territorial settlement of the Ex-Ottoman Fertile Crescent territories was thus:

1) French protectorate/mandate over Syria an Lebanon

2) British Mandate over Iraq under King Feisal I, the eldest son of Husayn, the Sharif of Mecca

3) British Mandate over Palestine west of the Jordan

4) British Mandate over the Emirate of Transjordan, under Abdullah, Sharif Husayn's second son, as Emir

5) Direct rule of Shairf Husayn over the Hijaz, and upon his death, the rule of his third son Ali. He would be displaced by the Al-Saud coming from the Nejd within only a couple years.

Of course this was not the original plan anybody is recorded to have had in mind during WWI or immediately after.

Some earlier ideas were a state led by Husayn or Feisal containing most of the Fertile Crescent, with some exceptions on the periphery.

In 1919-1921, the Hashemite family, with British backing, was seeking to have Feisal be King of Syria, second son Abdullah as King of Iraq and the territory of Transjordan was still considered part of the Mandate of Palestine.

The fact that the eldest Hashemite brother, Feisal, was making the Syrian crown his priority and allowing his brother to be considered for the Iraqi crown seems to me to indicate that the Hashemite family for some reason at the time valued Syria more than Iraq. [Non-oil considerations must have predominated at the time. Damascus had more prestige than Baghdad in Arab nationalist circles]

Well in OTL, the French threw Feisal out of Syria. To settle the Franco-Feisal dispute, or rescue Feisal (client #1) from his defeat, Feisal received the crown of Iraq as a consolation prize.

Without any room for him in Iraq, Abdullah, leading tribal forces in the Hejaz and eastern resorted to raiding Syria, contesting the French position there.

To end Abdullah's provocations of the French, the British separated off Palestine east of the Jordan and called it the Emirate of Transjordan, under Abdullah's rule. To London's satisfaction, paying off Abdullah with an Emirate and a subsidy worked to end Abdullah's raiding career against the French.

--So now you've got the history of this elaborate rotation.

The what if here is, what if the French had been willing to do a deal with Feisal and Feisal had been willing to do a deal with the French over Syria?

So he remains King of Syria - he is under the protection/supervision of France as mandatory power

His brother Abdullah becomes King of Iraq. Britain is mandatory power

Jordan is never separated from the Palestine mandate (unless Ali ends up needing an Emirate for himself after losing Hijaz and he's a credible enough nuisance to be given one)

---What are the other short, medium and long-term consequences of this for the Middle East?
 

raharris1973

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For one, you could try seeing the Zionists go for both the West Bank and all of Transjordan in 1948-1949.

Plus sides of this scenario for the Zionists -
1. All of Transjordan is left with the Palestine Mandate.
2. Even once the British are awakened to Arab opposition to the Zionist program, with the Mandate being territorially larger, granting the Zionists all or most of the territory west of the Jordan might seem "reasonable" to those designing partition schemes.
3. There is no well-trained, equipped and led "Arab Legion" to oppose the nascent Israeli armed forces in 1948-1949, Israeli holding of Jerusalem's old city's Jewish Quarter is far more likely.

Downsides for the Zionists -
1. No Hashimite - Husayni feud, so maybe nearly all Muslim townsmen and Bedouin in the super-large Palestine Mandate rally to the Mufti of Jerusalem
2. There is no Hashimite power to make a truce with, rather the Zionists need to deal with vast "guerrilla" country willing to cooperate with Syrian and Iraqi intervening armies
 
With different population concerns , its possible that the British might be more amiable to greater Jewish migration to the Mandate of Palestine. On the longer order, its possible that Feisal and Abdullah might go to war with Israel at some point, but given their natures, some sort of wider international settlement is likely. I could imagine Israel trying to push for the Eastern bank of the Jordan river, and ceding large portions of Eastern/northeastern Jordan to Iraq and Syria for peace. If a compromise is made over Jerusalem (vis a vis control of Al Sham al Sharif by the Waqf) similar to the one currently present, I can see the three countries having a tense but amniable relationship.

Saudi Arabia might be different. The major push for their formation is their invasion of the Hejaz, spurred on by the weak position of the Hashemite family. The British had been supplying more weapons to the Saudis than the Hashemites, but the French might have a different policy. If Iraq and Syria are able to rush to the Hejaz's defense, then its possible they could push the Saudis back. The Saudi state might then elect to join up with the United Arab Emirates if made small enough.

Pan Arabism might take a different note, given the success of a "Arab" region involving mesopotamia. Early 1920s Egypt was still a hub for Pharonism, and secular Egyptian nationalism might take off instead of pan-arabism if the Hashemites are unwilling to play ball with North Africa. You might see something along the lines of a Egyptian-Sudanese union, which was pushed for for a long time. Beberist moivements could also begin to gain sway across the Magreb under a similar phenomenon.

Its important to note that Arabic is only a unified language because each arab speaking country insists on maintaining its "formal" archaic variant along with the more casual everyday variant unique to various regions. If arab unity isn't as large of a political force and states begin to standardize the informal variants of arabic, then each dialect will begin to drift like latin did into Italian, Spanish, etc.

Turkey, Israel, Egypt interaction would be interesting here, if the Arab Israeli conflict is happening on different terms. All three of them see themselves as "western" at the time, but aren't see as such by European powers.

The Islamist movement becomes something entirely different than its current form. In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood pushes for the current King to inplement sharia law, declare a caliphate and rule the country on his own, because the Hashemites have sufficient pedigree to qualify as Caliphs. Its possible that the more extream Islamic movements go in similar directions here. Also a a large note, southern Iraq during the 20th century was generally a hotbed for communists, as well as being more "cosmopolitian" because of indian ocean trading links. It's likely that there will be some sort of tension here, and I'd expect the Soviets to intervene at some point.
 
Back then Jordan and Palestine were considered part of Syria, which was an overarching region of which Syria itself was made up of five orsix seperate parts. There was apparently problems during the Arab wars against Israel, as the Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians were of the (correct) opinion that he wanted to be King of Syria and was using the wars to gain land for himself. With an eye on the lands of Egypt and Syria as well, since they were part of historical Syria. Well, a part of Egypt around Sinai.


Ahhh, and I do wonder about Hejaz, Iraq, and Jordan. Did their succession go by the Arab one of the eldest male in the family being the leader? Or was it that Jordan, Hejaz, and Iraq were to consider their kings to be the heads of the dynasties so their sons inherited before their brothers?
 
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