The Ottoman Dissolution began in 2010-2011, with the overthrow of the regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid III by the far-right Golden Wolves militia, led by Rifat Macar, who established a “regency” in Constantinople, with the ultimate goal of making himself Sultan. Macar’s overthrowing of the Ottoman government, as well as his stated goal of destroying or driving out all non-Sunnis from the empire, was the catalyst for what became the First Coalition War: the armed intervention, under the auspices of the International Security Council, by the forces of Austria-Hungary, Brazil, Germany, and the United States, along with continents from the respective member states of the CDS, EC, and the (US/Brazil-led) Council of the Western Hemisphere. The stated goal of this intervention was to defeat the Golden Wolves and to bring an end to the multi-sided civil war in the collapsing Ottoman Empire. However, the participants in this intervention would come to learn that while defeating the Golden Wolves was one thing, winning the peace was another matter entirely. Especially as other major powers, including Bharat, Egypt, Persia, and Russia, intervened in the Middle East in their own campaigns over the next two decades.
The Ottoman Dissolution in the 2010s also coincided with the Pakistani Dissolution which began in 2014, with the collapse of the Galal Khan militarist dictatorship, and which triggered both a major Bharati intervention and wars of independence by separatist movements in Baluchistan and Sindh, both of which were supported by the Bharatis. However, the Bharati support for Baloch independence, coupled with Bharati support for Kurdish independence, led to the rapid deterioration of diplomatic relations with Persia, which opposed both Baloch and Kurdish independence.
The Ottoman Dissolution and the Pakistani Dissolution, and the resulting interventions by outside powers and subsequent regional conflicts, were the key events of what would later be referred to by historians as the Long Crisis, which began with the Ottoman Dissolution in the early 2010s but would not end until the early 2030s. Armed conflicts that occurred during this time period as far apart as the Sahel and Central Asia, related, in various degrees, to the collapse of the Ottoman caliphate and the emergence of local extremist groups, would also be considered by historians to be part of the Long Crisis.
A major regional war that occurred during the Long Crisis was the 2012-2013 intervention by the US and CDS in Sudan, in response to reports of genocidal violence being perpetrated by the Sudanese government both in the southern regions of the country and in Darfur.
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By the early 2030s, with the final end of the fighting in the Middle East, there were numerous successor states in what had once been the Ottoman Empire, almost all of which were part of the respective spheres of influence of several major powers or regional blocs.
Regional successor states by the early 2030s included the Republic of Kurdistan, centered in Kirkuk and allied with both Bharat and Russia, the Kingdom of Turkey, ruled by an EC-backed dynasty unrelated to the former Ottoman ruling family, and with Constantinople still under an Austro-Hungarian/German military occupation, the Commonwealth of Zion, a Jewish state centered in Jerusalem and controlling, more or less, the territory of OTL Israel and allied with the EC, Armenia, which was reestablished with Russian and Persian support in the late 2010s, as well as the large international Armenian diaspora.
There are also numerous small states in the Middle East whose borders reflect where the fighting stopped at different points during the Ottoman Dissolution. In the western reaches of the former Ottoman Empire, there are multiple independent entities centered around major cities and towns in the territories of OTL Jordan, Syria, and southwestern Turkey, supported by the EC. There are also independent Christian, Sunni, and Shiite states on the territory of OTL Lebanon (allied with the EC). There is an Alawite state centered in Latakia and Tartus allied with the EC, and a Druze state centered in an area roughly analogous to OTL As-Suwayda Governorate in Syria.
Further to the east, there is the Emirate of Zor, an independent Sunni state centered around the city of Deir ez-Zor and including areas of OTL eastern Syria and western Iraq. It is unaligned with any major powers, and is focused on preserving its independence above all else.
There is a small independent state in the Nineveh Plains, centered around the city of Bakhdida, with large numbers of Christians, Yazidis, and Shabaks. It is a Kurdish protectorate.
In Mesopotamia, the Persians have a substantial sphere of influence that includes the Republic of Basra and city states centered on the cities of Baghdad and Samarra.
The Arabian Peninsula, by the end of the Ottoman Dissolution, is broadly divided into Egyptian, Bharati, and Persian spheres of influence, with Egypt dominating the west, especially the Hijaz, the Persians dominating the west, and allied with an independent Kingdom of Oman, and the Bharatis dominating a smaller area in the south. However, the Bharatis directly control the city of Aden, as well as the former site of the Ottoman space program in Al Mukalla, both in OTL Yemen.
Mecca and Medina are both protected by an international peacekeeping force drawn from various Muslim nations.
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