Imagine the following scenario: Humphrey beats Nixon in 1968 and is re-elected in 1972 (for good measure, let's say his opponent is Ronald Reagan). In this scenario, how different would America's approach to the Middle East and the region as a whole have been from OTL? Below are just a few questions I have on various topics and some of my own observations (important questions and observations are bolded)
Israel/ Yom Kippur War
Israel/ Yom Kippur War
- Since Humphrey was one of Congress' strongest supporters of Israel and had a close personal relationship with Golda Meir, it's entirely plausible that America would've sold greater amounts of the most up-to-date American arms to Israel in the early 70s ITTL. Would this have been enough to decrease or eliminate the advantage the Syrian and Egyptian armies enjoyed at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War thanks to their use of new Soviet weapons? If so, would Israel have been able to defeat Egypt and Syria without the need for Operation Nickel Grass and thereby butterfly away OPEC's 1973 oil embargo? Or, would increased American arms sales to Israel have convinced Egypt and Syria to postpone attacking Israel for another year or two?
- Conversely, could Humphrey have brokered a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and thereby prevent the Yom Kippur War? If so, what would the long-term effects been? As Uri Bar-Joseph wrote in "Last Chance to Avoid War: Sadat's Peace Initiative of February 1973 and its Failure,"Sadat presented a peace offer to Israel and the U.S. that would've returned Sinai to Egypt in exchange for Egypt recognizing Israel, agreeing to the demilitarization of Sinai and the presence of an international peacekeeping force at strategic points including Sharm al Sheikh, ending all secondary and tertiary boycotts against Israel, allowing Israel free passage through the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran, and prohibiting the PLO and other armed groups from staging attacks against Israel from Egyptian soil. Full normalization between Egypt and Israel, however (e.g. exchanging Ambassadors, direct trade, free travel, etc.), would wait until a comprehensive regional peace agreement between Israel, the Palestinians, and the other Arab states was reached. Unfortunately, Nixon and Meir rebuffed Sadat's offer because the former wasn't concerned enough about Israel for the offer to merit his attention while the latter thought they were in a strong enough military position that they could hold out for a better deal (even if they thought that the deal was preferable to war).
- We can never know for sure if Humphrey would've taken up Sadat's offer, but my view is that if anyone could've made this deal a reality, it would've been him. Humphrey's close personal relationship with Golda Meir and long-standing support for Israel would've meant that Meir would've trusted him enough to at least hear Sadat out. This is basically the reason why Carter used Humphrey IOTL to get Begin to be more flexible during the Camp David negotiations in 1978. In short, this could've been Humphrey's "Nixon goes to China moment" ITTL (although we'd be calling it a "Humphrey goes to Egypt" moment ITTL since there's no way Humphrey could've gone to China). I'm also willing to guess that if Humphrey had brokered a deal between Egypt and Israel, then the rapprochement between Iraq and Syria that happened IOTL because of the Camp David Accords would've happened earlier ITTL. As a result, Saddam Hussein, who was already effectively in control of Iraq by 1971, might have come to power in 1974 or 1975 rather than 1979.
- In all likelihood, Humphrey would've continued LBJ's "Twin Pillars" policy of balancing Iran and Saudi Arabia against each other rather than pursuing Nixon's strategy of "Iranian Primacy." The reason is that Humphrey IOTL was not a fan of the Shah and even predicted his overthrow in 1961. As a result, America probably would've stepped up pressure on Iran over human rights and the U.S.-Iranian oil and arms trade might've taken a considerable hit relative to OTL. In all likelihood, the Shah would've at best implemented only minor democratic reforms and retaliated establishing somewhat stronger ties with the Eastern Bloc (IOTL, the Shah responded to detente by selling more oil to the Eastern Bloc). Nevertheless, could increased pressure on human rights from a Humphrey Administration and the lack of the early-to-mid-70s Iranian oil boom (especially if there's no Yom Kippur War or OPEC oil embargo) have emboldened Iranian dissidents enough to cause increased political instability or even cause the Iranian Revolution to happen three to five years early? Could Ali Shariati play a leading role in an earlier Iranian Revolution?
- Should Iran be in a weaker state militarily, economically, politically and Saddam Hussein came to power a few years early as described in the scenario above, would Iraq have been emboldened enough to use Iran's support for Kurdish rebels and the Shatt al-Arab crisis of 1974-1975 as pretext for seizing Khuzestan in 1975? If so, what would've been the impacts of an earlier Iran-Iraq War? Obviously, it would depend on how big TTL's U.S.-Iran rift and how bad Iran's political situation got to be, but I can say with relative certainly that Saddam only would've attacked Iran in 1975 if he received sufficient arms and money from China, the Soviet Union, and Iraq's other allies.