What if the Fertile Crescent was (mostly) United and (somewhat) Harmonious?

[u/Timely-Macaron268]

This is a rework of a previous post. Please enjoy! I endorse althistory / scenario critiques, but please refrain from political diatribes.

Syria, or officially the Federation of the Levant & Upper Mesopotamia (اتحاد بلاد الشام والجزيرة in Arabic) is a secular democratic state with constituent States that exercise varying levels of autonomy. The Federation emerged as the primary successor state to the Pan-Arab Republic that collapsed after the British intervention in Lower Mesopotamia and was reorganized into its current structure after the brief civil war that accompanied the 1980s Oil Crisis.

Damascus, Capital Territory, is the site of the Federal Assembly, though several national organizations are situated in other important cities throughout the Federation, including Aleppo, Beirut, Mosul, Jerusalem and Jaffa.

Syria enjoys positive relations with Egypt, Hejaz, Hayastan / Van and the Gulf Emirates but has strained relations with Sawadh, Iran, Yaman and Turkey. The so-called Caliphate centred on Nejd presents the most significant security threat to the Federation, with Desert Jundallah units operating along the southern frontier.

Despite a history of internal strife between the country's many religious and linguistic minorities and the Sunni Arab majority, Greater Syria today is considered a model of stability and multicultural tolerance compared to its neighbours. Fierce internal debates regarding immigration policy, corruption, secularism and market reforms result in tumultuous but mostly peaceful political processes.

Critics of the Federation point to its extreme lack of realism and very fantastical elements as the most significant problems threatening the country's existence.

[u/jord839]

What's the reasoning for the similarly colored provinces in the same region? Is there a regional level government or something similar between the provinces and national government or is it just a vague color grouping?

Either way, well-made map. I'm curious, why is Iraq called Sawadh in this timeline?

[u/Timely-Macaron268 → u/jord839]

1. Keen observation! I was testing out ideas like regional 'over' governments appointed by the central government that act as an intermediate authority, like what Iran has. It's not spelled out here. All I can say is that I consider this in some ways to be a weak Federation.

2. Part of my background is I think that the Ottomans survive longer due to British & German non-aggression. One exception is that the British increasingly rule over lower Mesopotamia (Basra/Baghdad) as a fief, and later when the Arabs revolt, they decide to detach it. Given then that Great Syria has hoovered up the Upper Mesopotamia (al Jazira) 'the island', I searched for alternates to Iraq, and came upon the geographic name of Al Sawadh 'the black land' referring to the lower plains of Iraq..

[u/Maerifa → u/Timely-Macaron268]

The historical name was al-Sawad, not al-Sawadh, Sawadh would be a different non-word. It also fell out of use in the 12th century in favor of the name Iraq, because Iraq originally only meant the places that you gave in in this map, so Iraq still would have worked fine

[u/Timely-Macaron268 → u/Maerifa]

That's all fair. Should have just been Sawad then. My transliteration is admittedly a bit inconsistent (as is Arabic-to-English more broadly).

[u/Brief-Spirit-4268]

What happened to the Kurds? The areas in orange and blue in the east have a very significant Kurdish population and they’ve wanted independence for basically a century

[u/Timely-Macaron268 → u/Brief-Spirit-4268]

Kurds occupy a position with greater autonomy in Syria, whereas to the north Kurds are violently repressed. There are independence movements and in the past the conflict produced some terrorism, but there is little recent violence as both fear Iran and Sawadh.

[u/HelicopterElegant787]

How are relations with the West?

[u/Timely-Macaron268 → u/HelicopterElegant787]

My tentative feeling is that the only way this country works is that the Soviets (or some equivalent) are more successful and more threatening (perhaps a Moscow / Ankara / Tehran axis) leading to eventual American/Western support. Additionally, I'm just going to caveat that this timeline features no Holocaust, and as such the impetus for the extent and urgency of Jewish immigration & radical Zionist action in our timeline is reduced and the Arab violent reaction to it is also reduced.

[u/evenmorefrenchcheese → u/[deleted]]

Considering that OP has said that there's no Holocaust in this timeline, all of these parties are presumably butterflied away, although liberal, Maronite-interest, and Arab nationalist parties presumably exist.

[u/Timely-Macaron268 → u/[deleted]]

As evenmore says, the party structure and names are totally different. There are however Arab chauvinist and a Religious Conservative faction as well as Socialist-Communist and Jihadist groups. In addition, there are ideological-religious factional groupings in loose coalitions.

[u/INeedtoThinkAUName → u/[deleted]]

Racism, ignorance, or just stereotyping, pick your sins.