The Arabian War

DaHound22

Banned
So, remember the Oil Crisis of 1973? Israel beats up on the Arab nations surrounding it in the Yom Kippur War, and in response King Faisal of Saudi Arabia starts an oil embargo against the west, who support Israel. Well, according to some British sources (see here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jan/01/uk.past3), President Richard Nixon and the US Government were considering an invasion of Saudi Arabia to combat this embargo. The question? What if they did. What if the USA invaded Saudi Arabia in respone to the oil embargo in 1973? How would the Islamic world react to an attack on their holy land? How would the Saudi's fare? Would they crumble in a week like Saddam, or burrow in and fight for decades on end like the Viet Cong? Would the invasion legitimize the Saudi kingdom in the eyes of other Arab nations? And how would the counterculture in the states react to getting involved in another war just barely after Vietnam? Let me know what you think.

NOTE: This post was accidentally made earlier in the Pre1900 forum. Please ignore that mistake haha, im not sure how to delete it.
 
So, remember the Oil Crisis of 1973? Israel beats up on the Arab nations surrounding it in the Yom Kippur War, and in response King Faisal of Saudi Arabia starts an oil embargo against the west, who support Israel. Well, according to some British sources (see here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/jan/01/uk.past3), President Richard Nixon and the US Government were considering an invasion of Saudi Arabia to combat this embargo. The question? What if they did. What if the USA invaded Saudi Arabia in respone to the oil embargo in 1973? How would the Islamic world react to an attack on their holy land? How would the Saudi's fare? Would they crumble in a week like Saddam, or burrow in and fight for decades on end like the Viet Cong? Would the invasion legitimize the Saudi kingdom in the eyes of other Arab nations? And how would the counterculture in the states react to getting involved in another war just barely after Vietnam? Let me know what you think.

NOTE: This post was accidentally made earlier in the Pre1900 forum. Please ignore that mistake haha, im not sure how to delete it.
You know how Iran had an Islamic revolution? Imagine that across the entire Muslim world against the US, Israel and the rest of the West and Japan. Jihad versus the Cold Warriors would be a nightmare.
 
I will wonder just how the USSR will try to handle the situation? Would they be able to handle their own Muslim citizens or might they get caught up in the aftereffects?
 
I will wonder just how the USSR will try to handle the situation? Would they be able to handle their own Muslim citizens or might they get caught up in the aftereffects?

They just sit back and relax. Arm whoever needs arming and keep developing the oilfields in Siberia.
 
You know how Iran had an Islamic revolution? Imagine that across the entire Muslim world against the US, Israel and the rest of the West and Japan. Jihad versus the Cold Warriors would be a nightmare.

In 1973, Arab Nationalism hadn't been totally discredited yet, and that had to happen before the Islamist awakening could happen.
That means the Lebanese Civil War has to cook for a few years first, and that's two years in the future

In 1973, Khomeini had been in Iraq, a guest of Saddam for almost eight years, and had little contact with the wider world.

That Islamic revolution was an Iranian revolution, with a coalition of Left and Islamic groups, with the Leftist shortly purged after the Shah fled.

Last, US plans were not planning on taking the Eastern Holy sites, but the Oil fields in the West.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Last, US plans were not planning on taking the Eastern Holy sites, but the Oil fields in the West.

I think you meant oilfields in the *east* and holy cities in the *west* of Arabia.

Well, how much of a deployable, effective ground force does the US have in late 1973 early 1974? Could the operation be undertaken without de-nuding NATO in Europe too much?

Such an operation would give the Soviet Union a great opportunity to collaborate with Arab Nationalist regimes like Egypt, Syria, Iraq and South Yemen, to deploy protective Soviet forces and to support insurgent warfare on the Arabian peninsula. Arabian people's might be more guerrilla capable in the early 70s as they might not have gotten as soft from prosperity as they would 5 to 10 years later.

Such a US also stands a high chance of alienating the Shah's Iran, and seeing him move towards at least a hostile neutrality to the US. The USSR could also posture aggressively in Europe and upend the Helsinki Talks.
 
I think you meant oilfields in the *east* and holy cities in the *west* of Arabia.
Thats what I get for posting during insomnia

Well, how much of a deployable, effective ground force does the US have in late 1973 early 1974? Could the operation be undertaken without de-nuding NATO in Europe too much?

Even the US military forces at their nadir, is still worlds better than SA and the Gulf States

Such an operation would give the Soviet Union a great opportunity to collaborate with Arab Nationalist regimes like Egypt, Syria, Iraq and South Yemen, to deploy protective Soviet forces and to support insurgent warfare on the Arabian peninsula. Arabian people's might be more guerrilla capable in the early 70s as they might not have gotten as soft from prosperity as they would 5 to 10 years later.

Unlike Iraq, it's tough to supply insurgents in actual desert, and the nature of the Saudis got soft the generation after WWI

With Tricky Dick obviously having gone off the rails, no, Brezhnev would not risk that. After all, he didn't like the idea of WWIII from what went at the end of Yom Kippur

Such a US also stands a high chance of alienating the Shah's Iran, and seeing him move towards at least a hostile neutrality to the US. The USSR could also posture aggressively in Europe and upend the Helsinki Talks.

Like I said, Brezhnev doesn't want WWIII, but would make all kinds of noise at the UN, for all the good that does.
For W.Europe, they have the simple question: do they want Oil or not? For the Shah, this op put im as the one in OPEC who calls the shots, and he was tired of the Marxist rebels who had been getting Soviet aid, and he really had little solidarity with the Arab States in any case, given his relationship with the Israelis
 
A better bet for the USA would be to work with the British to try and get anti-Saudi leaning Arabs who may want to support a coup/dismemberment of the Saudi state. Perhaps Jordan would be willing to gain revenge for the Saudi invasion of their family's rightful lands of the Hejaz. Saudi Arabia may hold the holy cities, but the King of Jordan holds the rightful claim to being the protector of those cities; the Saud family are the Beverly Hillbillies of the Arab world, a bunch of rubes who got rich off oil. They aren't even the legitimate rulers of the Nejd, let alone Hejaz or Asir.

A discrediting campaign, some CIA and Mosad misinformation and photographs leaked (rich Saudi family members eating a pepperoni pizza at the very least, leading to BIG things like prostitute peeing) to ruin their reputation, rallying the young and educated along with the ultra-religious poor about the opulence of the Saud family. Mosad could do some strategic "explosions" that get blamed on certain groups, then the Saudi govt cracks down, leading to more repression but also more demonstrations and uprisings.

USA-led invasion of the oil fields in all Hasa could be done with Iranian, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraqi support in the name of securing them from a "failing state" that can't protect them itself from outside or internal threats. Hell, Iran and/or Iraq may actually make moves to do something in that vein, and such sabres rattling can be just the excuse the US needs to do.

Jordan with British, French, and American support, possibly even Egyptian and Iraqi, can seize the Hejaz. Israel might even give covert intelligence to help them, an action we never hear about, but rumors a decade or two later.
 
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