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History Strikes Back (TNO/TLM ISOT into OTL)

Would you all prefer a side story series on

  • UAR culture, subcultures and society in general

    Votes: 28 23.9%

  • UAR cities and locales

    Votes: 18 15.4%

  • Changes and events IOTL unrelated to the Cold War

    Votes: 71 60.7%
  • Total voters
    117
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I mean it is probably the best time for the ultra-nationalists to shoot their shot. Shame we have all these nice fascist stomping boots in storage and the military industrial complex of a economic superpower.
 
StarMaker764 said:
For a brief period it seemed that the ultranationalists were vindicated in their gambit as their enemies crumbled and they seemed on the cusp of uniting all Serbs under one umbrella at last.

| And indeed they would |
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Hmmm, the phrasing of this reminds me of the ironic turn of phrase 'may you get all that you wish for.'

There's no way something like this is going to go smoothly or easy, and I honestly don't see a reason why the UAR - or the Comintern - can't rush in troops to reverse any gains Serbia makes. It's practically their backyard, and while they might have been distracted by the Central Africa stuff there's no way they missed the entire build up to the invasion.
 
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A bloody foolish affair pt1 (2007)
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    • "The Americans' coming to Iraq was a mistake. Their staying was a mistake. Their behavior with the population was a mistake... They must know that certainly, the Islamic world and chiefly the Shiite world will not stay silent in face of this."—Ali Khamenei

    The Iran War was not the cakewalk promised by the Western war hawks.

    Far from the tortured grateful populace rising in revolt and greeting their "liberators" with open arms, the Allied forces found themselves facing a galvanized nation that had seen the fears and warnings of its most paranoid nationalists and demagogues vindicated as it seemed the entirety of the world had decided to unite against the Persian heartland.

    Of course, the deliberate starvation policies before the invasion and the subsequent bombings of populated areas did not help the Allies win hearts and minds, and though ground was gained in the opening salvos of the conflict it quickly became clear that further advances would be paid for in blood, and the conflict was already proving to be the deadliest for the United States and almost every other invading participant of the war.

    The unquestioned superiority of the Allies' air forces did help blunt the capabilities of the Iranians, but no matter the advantages of the West/Eurasian forces' fighter jets they could not hold and occupy territory, and thus ground troops would still find themselves hurled into seemingly endless hours of punishing, attrition heavy urban warfare and more vulnerable ground operations.

    Even so, there was no question that the Allies were advancing, with the sole exception of Turkish forces on the western front (who found themselves unable to advance much and trapped in a bloody stalemate), as the simple fact remained that Iranian industry and fighting capacity simply could not match the might of the entire western world aligned against it, especially with many critical industries being starved for resources even with decades of autarkic measures in place.

    The silver lining for Tehran was that the growing butcher's bill was beginning to turn public opinion in the invading nations against the war, and luckily despite its worst fears the Arabs had not intervened in the conflict despite forces on the border being placed on high alert.

    The truth was that the Islamic Republic had little to worry about on that front, as not only was Cairo too busy handling the Balkan crisis and the unexpected spiraling success of the Sankara offensive but there was overwhelming domestic opposition to getting involved in the NATO-Iran war on both the grassroots and institutional level; both out of fear of the UAR's involvement causing a nuclear standoff and a general hatred towards the reactionary Islamist regime that just weeks ago was the UAR's chief problem in the region.

    Some however were not keen on the IRI being replaced by what no doubt be a far more effective and dangerous Western comprador state that would form the basis of an anti-Arab axis in the region alongside Afghanistan and Turkey, and thus the Cairo Soviet would vote to grant President Tarek Afif the ability to intervene in the conflict only if invited to do so by the Iranian government, on the basis that such a scenario would mean far less bloodshed if the people's army rolled in with some internal support (and would have more leverage with post-war restructuring).

    Of course, such a possibility seemed unlikely at the time, as the Iranians seemed resolved to fight on their own for now and were not keen on vanquishing the possibility of a full Western takeover for a partial one with the Sunni-Socialist Arabs joining in the fun.

    On the Allied side, the situation was far from ideal as well, even if it was far less dire than their Persian foes.

    The European side of NATO along with America's commonwealth and Asian allies had willingly participated and contributed to the Iranian war on the assurances of the White House that the campaign would be quick and decisive akin to the Iraq war and the Western interventions in the Balkans along with a belief that the so-called free world needed a show of force to cow the returning socialist sphere and to at least have the appearance of unity in action.

    The general atmosphere of Islamophobia and anti-terror paranoia has also proven pivotal in swaying many politicians and the populace at large in many liberal democracies towards an initial pro-"intervention" mindset, but as the conflict dragged into its second month and much of Iran remained unoccupied said favorable moods became harder to maintain as the costs of the war effort began to mount and the body bags began to flow in.

    Anti-war protests had begun ever since the war itself was announced, but they were ephemeral and small in numbers at first, but the demonstrations began steadily growing in numbers and frequency as the war progressed, with even the victory at Birjand doing little to reverse the trend.

    The United States, Turkey, and Russia proved exceptions to the rule for the time being, the latter thanks to the populace already being habituated to a low-level state of war by the Chechen conflict (Russia's lack of social freedoms and media transparency also helped) while in Turkey's case, it was a mixture of proximity to the UAR breeding more fanatical anti-communist sentiment and the growing Kurdish insurgency allowing the government greater leeway in cracking down on dissent.

    America had little need of that thanks to its lucky mix of a war-eager media sphere and a populace already primed for the conflict by years of xenophobia and patriotism, but even Bush was concerned with the war advancing at a much slower pace than expected.

    The evangelical warmonger had hoped for the war to be over before the time came for elections, letting him leave office with a clear victory to his name to wash off the fact of the return of communism and the economic meltdown under his administration, and to cement America's hard-won (now threatened) position in world politics but a prolonged conflict risked souring that and granting an easy win for the democrats in the presidential race (even if a sense of anti-Islamic and anti-communist solidarity had thus far kept them from taking advantage of his blunders so far).

    Compounding matters was the fact that the longer the war dragged the more the general pro-American sentiment that permeated the world since the end of the Cold War was being eroded and called into question, and the more Bush's own neoconservative face was beginning to face opposition from the latent but still very much existing isolationist wings of his own party, not to mention the promises his administration had made to many prominent business interests that now risked being delivered too late.

    Something had to be done to make things go a little bit faster…

    | No matter the cost in lives |
     
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    • Fun fact: finding a quote that fits this update from an Islamist was difficult because 99% of the shit they say is either anti-feminism, antisemitism or anti-fun.
     
    StarMaker764 said:
    Something had to be done to make things go a little bit faster…

    | No matter the cost in lives |
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    Oh dear…

    Tehran (the government or the city) isn't going to survive what Bush throws at them in any recognizable fashion, is it? Hopefully he's not thinking about breaking out the canned sunshine already, is he?
     
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    A false flag attack on Terhan using chemical weapons maybe? The US could say that the chemical attack was by the Iranian government against their own dissidents or something like that. That could help hold off the growing anti-war movement.
     
    Maybe the UAR can't intervene, but perhaps they could secretly supply weapons. With NATO air superiority I would think that supplying the Iranians with some MANPADs shouldn't be too hard.
     
    Restestsest said:
    Maybe the UAR can't intervene, but perhaps they could secretly supply weapons. With NATO air superiority I would think that supplying the Iranians with some MANPADs shouldn't be too hard.
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    The UAR has no manpads of US or USSR make for even a fig-leaf of deniability and I imagine buying enough would raise flags. Handing equipment over means handing over a heap of firepower with "Made in ComIntern" stamped on the side.
     
    Hey may be we can use our friend stamp in North Korea to stamp it for really fig-leaf of deniability.
     
    We have stealth aircraft equivalent to anything the west has, plus the ability to detect and intercept American stealth.

    See the border incident the UAR had with Iran
     
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