alternatehistory.com

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?
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