WI: No Baghdad Pact

The Baghdad Pact was an alliance signed between Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom in 1955. It was aimed at stopping Soviet influence in the region. However, it was a total failure. In 1958, after a revolution in Iraq overthrew the monarchy, it left the Pact, during the Arab-Israeli and Indo-Pakistani Wars it did nothing, and the Soviets opened up strong relations with many Middle East nations despite the alliance. It effectively died in 1974 with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and Britain removing forces that were supposed to be used to provide the Baghdad Pact legitimacy, and was formally dissolved after the Iranian Revolution. What if this failed alliance never existed?

For one, could this mean that relations between Pakistan and the West are weaker? The main reason India allied with the USSR is because it felt betrayed by the US allying with Pakistan. With a weaker relationship with Pakistan, could the initially warm relations between India and the West continue?

Could this also mean that British jockeying in the Middle East is less obvious? Without a military alliance, suddenly Britain can ally with countries and jockey for oil without making their intentions clear with a literal military alliance with oil-producing nations.
 
Nasser was strongly opposed to the Baghdad Pact as he believed it would shift the centre of gravity in the Mid East from Cairo to Baghdad and reduce his power and influence. It was his vocal, public opposition to the BP that caused Britain to rebuff him when he went looking for big arms deals in 1955 and this rebuff eventually lead him to the historic deal to acquire MiG 15s from the Soviets via Czechoslovakia, the first Soviet toehold in the region. The financing of the Aswan Dam construction was also tied up in this saga, with the British and US with holding finance for political reasons, which lead to:
  • the nationalisation of the Suez Canal
  • the failed Operation Musketeer
  • the disastrous British 1957 Defence White Paper
  • the speeding up of decolonisation
All of which created an environment for things like the Iraq revolution and further Soviet inroads in the Mid East.

Maybe this would all be different without the Baghdad Pact.
 
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