The very Black September

The War of Attrition ended after Nasser died of a heart attack on the 28th; he was only 52. Sadat, his successor, agreed to end the war, which had seen Soviet involvement in the form of "military advisors".

There were several attempts to kill Jordan's king Hussein I on the 1st. The Dawson's Field hijakings took place on the 6th; the 3 planes were blown up by the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) in front of TV cameras on the 12th, after their hostages were removed. Irbid, Jordan 2nd largest city, was declared a "liberated region" by the Palestinians that day. Nixon had wanted to bomb Palestinian positions in Jordan as a response, but the idea was dropped after secretary of defense Melvin Laird claimed the weather was unfavorable; however, ships and aircraft were placed in position for a possible strike.

Hussein declared martial law on the 16th. Fighting betwwen Jordanians and Palestinians began the next day. The pro-Syrian PLA (Palestine Liberation Army) sent a division into Jordan on the 18th. Hussein asked the Americans for help, and they in turn asked the Israelis. The PLA withdrew on the 24th, after Israeli overflights over their forces and heavy losses against the Jordanians. Nixon sent even more ships to the eastern Mediterranean. A cease-fire was agreed to on the 27th. Hussein and Arafat were in Cairo on the 27th at an Arab leaders' meeting and signed an agreement. Palestinian organizations had to leave the cities, but they were allowed to operate in Jordan; prisoners were to be released by both sides. Fighting continued, and the Palestinian organizations were eventually expelled from Jordan.

Let's say that Nasser doesn't have that heart attack and the Palestinians are a bit more successful. Could we have a war between the US, Israel and Jordan on one side and the Soviet Union, Egypt, the Palestinians, and Syria on the other, with the superpowers avoiding direct confrontation between their forces? Did Israel have nuclear weapons yet? How would this affect the Vietnam War? What side would Iraq join?
 
Assuming this is the year Nasser died in OTL (1970) in which case Israel may have been nuclear-armed by then. They were by Yom Kippur, supposedly Golda Meir was pondering using Israel's nukes if the Arabs took too much ground.

As far as the sides locking horns, Jordan would be stuck in the middle, as a large number of Jordanians are displaced Palestinians and therefore would hate Israel with a passion. I would guess Lebanon would be more likely to help out - the Shiites at the time had no reason to hate America, the Christians didn't either and I doubt the Lebanese would have all that much of an issue with Americans on their soil defending their country from the Syrians.

The USSR would have to train and equip a god awful lot of Syrians, Iraqis and Egyptians to beat the Israelis and Americans. The IDF won on Yom Kippur despite being outnumbered nine to one at the outset. Add US forces into it and their odds look even worse, especially if Lebanon and/or Turkey get into it as well.
 
It's been almost 3 years, I'm bumping this to see if any of our more recent members might have some ideas. I really liked this POD but lack the knowledge on military affairs needed to develop it.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
It's been almost 3 years, I'm bumping this to see if any of our more recent members might have some ideas. I really liked this POD but lack the knowledge on military affairs needed to develop it.

No kidding...it's creepy how this popped up with what I've been reading. Let me rummage through my bookshelf too...

Assuming this is the year Nasser died in OTL (1970) in which case Israel may have been nuclear-armed by then. They were by Yom Kippur, supposedly Golda Meir was pondering using Israel's nukes if the Arabs took too much ground.

Well, thanks to Abraham Rabinowitz's book, I'm going to say that there wasn't ever a point in the Yom Kippur War that the Israeli leadership actually contemplated the nuclear option. It was made to seem that they were so that Operation Nickel Grass (the US resupply effort of Israel, for those wondering) would get underway faster.





Myself, I think Israel would be the catspaw here instead of America doing the strikes. Heck...perhaps all you need is Israel striking PLO troops to strike the match.

One thing to remember with the intervening years between 1967 and 1973 is that they weren't just filled with the War of Attrition in the Sinai. In the north of Israel on the Golan Heights, the Syrians would launch what were called "battle days," sometimes with regimental or brigade sized forces attacking the Israeli positions. These were intense fights; so intense that for the first hours of the Yom Kippur War, many commanders on the Golan who didn't know about the Egyptian attack actually thought that it was just another Battle Day, albeit a very large one.

So...just pitching the POD as being an Israeli airstrike on the PLO troops in Jordan that politically makes it unworkable for Egypt and/or Syria not to move against it...the odds are in Israel's favour.
In 1973, the Egyptians and Syrians had an amazing SAM network, able to counter the Israeli air force. They also had rebuilt militaries with equipment that in some ways were even superior to the Israelis'. I'm referring here to the T-55 tanks the Syrians operated against the IDF in the Golan, which had nightsights. The Israelis had nothing to match that, though the Syrian battle doctrine wasn't able to pursue that advantage to it's utmost.

In 1970, they were still building. But, the Egyptians had their crossing scheme worked out for the canal: they ended up using an ingenious high-pressure water jet to pack sand into ramps and clear loose debris from the side of the canal. It was probably the most incredible engineering feat of the war and it's a shame it's not more well known. According to The Yom Kippur War: The Arab-Israeli War of 1973 by Simon Dunstan, they'd been training with the method and equipment since 1969.
It's conceivable they could've done it, and achieved the same initial shock on piercing the Bar-Lev Line as they did in OTL 1973.

But any Egyptian Army crossing into Sinai in 1970 would have a serious disadvantage that it's 1973 Brethren didn't: it would be trusting in the Egyptian Air Force for it's security in the skies. They had quantity on the IAF, but not quality.

If the Israelis end up holding Sinai at the end of these hostilities (which would be probable), then it might be very likely that they'd want to make them part of the country like they did with the Golan. And an Israeli Sinai is something that would end up sticking in the Egyptian craw for decades...
 
Top