WI: One, but not both, of Persia/Byzantines lose OTL territory to Arabs

As it says on the tin. In this situation, either the Byzantines lose OTL territory or the Persians fall completely, but not both.

Is this even plausible? Would the Arabs feel comfortable committing to either operation if the other were not already on the table? What's the long-term strategic effect?
 
As it says on the tin. In this situation, either the Byzantines lose OTL territory or the Persians fall completely, but not both.

Is this even plausible? Would the Arabs feel comfortable committing to either operation if the other were not already on the table? What's the long-term strategic effect?

For something like that to happen you have to put a POD in the Last Persian War. Either cripple Byzantium or Persia, and you'll have what you want.

I suggest an even more crippled Persia, that split up in various successor states before the initian arab raids.

Anyway, you can't be sure that arabs won't make some raids in the Roman Levant. It was their strategy. Maybe the romans win at Yarmouk could stop the arabs, which would strike a deal with the romans to go East, or be employed as foederati.
 
Have the Persians and Byzantine cooperate out of a sense of mutual self-preservation. Yarmuk goes differently, Arabs take central and southern Iraq but are stopped before they can male further progress. Muslim expansion heads into Africa and gradually becomes dominant there along with coastal India. Persia remains strong with retention of much of its Sassinid territories for much longer and Zoroastrianism endures. Byzantium spends a great deal of energy trying to retain the Levant and northern Africa but loses them in the centuries to come, Levant eventually coverts to Islam with a sizeable Egyptian minority appearing by the end of the Millennium. Iberia under the Visigoths endures becoming the nucleus of a state eventually encompassing most of Iberia, Southern France, modern Algeria, modern Morocco, modern Western Sahara, the Baelerics, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Canary islands. Byzantium
 
Anyway, you can't be sure that arabs won't make some raids in the Roman Levant. It was their strategy. Maybe the romans win at Yarmouk could stop the arabs, which would strike a deal with the romans to go East, or be employed as foederati.

That's an interesting scenario. I can't imagine the Romans not using the Arabs to bash the Persians over the head with next time the two come to blows.
 
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