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To:everyone: Alrighty, the forum changeover appears to be complete, and my account has survived the transition! I was kinda worried for a bit that I wouldn't be able to recover my account but thankfully its all worked out. Anyways, now I can continue updating this thing!

The Long Road to World War, Part 2
In the aftermath of the 4th Indo-Pakistani War, two major events unfolded. The first was a drastic downsizing of many of the worlds nuclear stockpiles. Horrified by images of the destruction in India and Pakistan on the news and the internet, public opinion of nuclear weapons hit a historic low, resulting in anti-nuclear weapons demonstrations on an unprecedented scale all over the world. In the face of immense public backlash against nuclear weapons, the world's nuclear armed states began an enormous downsizing. Britain and France were the first to take action, becoming the first countries since Ukraine and Kazakhstan to completely disarm their nuclear weapon's systems. Air and Ground systems were eliminated completely, while submarine launched weapons were replaced with conventional cruise missiles. China did similar with its sea based systems, while removing all its air deployed nukes and cutting its ground arsenal in half. The biggest contributors however were the largest nuclear weapons states: the United States and Russia. In November of 2002, George W Bush and Vladimir Putin would sign a new edition of the START treaty, scrapping up to 95% of their respective nuclear stockpiles. It would take several years to completely finish the drawdown, but many hoped that these measures would finally remove the threat of nuclear warfare from the earth once and for all. Unfortunately, world intelligence agencies had failed to find out about Colonel Syed's defection to Iran with his special cargo....
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The 2nd major after effect of the Indo-Pakistani war however would be much more negative: an acceleration of already unfolding American plans to invade Iraq. With his advisors already pushing for war with Saddam Hussein, the nuclear destruction of the 4th Indo-Pakistani war gave the Bush administration more political ammunition to push for war with Iraq, arguing that the US had to stop Iraq from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Despite many people and countries around the world urging the US not to invade the country, the Bush administration put together its own coalition of allies and launched an invasion of the country on March 24th, 2003.
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Promising a lightning fast "Shock and Awe" campaign, US and Coalition forces launched an overwhelming assault on Iraq, whose army had suffered under years of sanctions and deficiency. While American special forces and airborne infantry invaded the country's east by air, the main thrust of the invasion moved into Iraq from Kuwait. Iraqi forces in the south of the country were very quickly overwhelmed by the initial attack.
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A large force of the regular Iraqi Army regrouped around Nasiriyah, hoping to blunt the Coalition advance. Despite bringing 3 entire armoured divisions into battle, superior American and British weapons and better trained regular soldiers easily blunted even large numbers of Iraqi tanks, vehicles, conscripts, and militia's. At the same time, with Iraq's air force nowhere to be found, the USAF had total air superiority over the battlefield, something that was used to great advantage in order to destroy large numbers of Iraqi armoured and mechanized units in the open.
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Next, the noose began to tighten around Baghdad, as American ground forces from the south linked up with US airborne and special forces brigades in the east. Together, they managed to rout the entire 'Al Medina' armoured division of the Iraqi army and its supporting infantry and militias, securing the American positions in the country's west.
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Coalition forces reached the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital by overruning a large Iraqi force of militias and remnants of the regular army at Kut. US Marines and airmobile infantry easily pushed aside the ragtag Iraqi forces, which either fled into the countryside, or managed to retreat for the defense of Baghdad.
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The next battle however would not be so easy. With the fall of Kut, a large formation of Iraqi ground troops was now cut off and surrounded along the Iranian border. Deciding that these forces could be a major threat to American supply lines, British and American forces converged on the swampy area to force their surrender. Expecting a quick routing of the Iraqi troops, the Coalition's generals were surprised when Iraqi forces instead offered very heavy resistance. A bloody battle ensued with Iraqi forces ambushing British and American troops with effective attacks using RPG's, mines, hidden tanks, and small arms fire. After several days of grueling combat, the Iraqi troops would finally surrender, after British tanks managed to reach the Iranian border and their pocket of resistance collapsed. However, it would be a costly victory, with almost 1400 Coalition troops dying in the battle alongside almost 10,000 of their Iraqi counterparts, while thousands of other Iraqi troops surrendered.
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With the rearguard now secure, American troops launched their long awaited assault on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. American tanks with support from US Marines and army infantry entered the city, facing intense resistance from units of the Iraqi Republican Guard. Fighting in urban terrain resulted in very heavy coalition infantry losses, especially as US forces approached Baghdad's city centre.
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However, despite the Iraqi Republican Guard's best efforts, they couldn't hold out against the Coalition's enormous firepower, air support, and technical advantages. After a bloody battle that cost the lives of almost 3600 US troops, Baghdad's garrison surrendered and the city fell into Coalition hands. Saddam Hussein meanwhile had fled the city and went into hiding.
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With Saddam having disappeared and the Iraqi Army now surrendering in droves, what few Iraqi government officials were left came forward and offered their country's unconditional surrender. Coalition leaders accepted the Iraqi offer, and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" ended on April 25th, 2003.
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In just over a month, Iraq had surrendered and the Saddam Hussein regime had been destroyed, albeit at a far higher cost in US and Coalition lives than had been initially anticipated. From the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, President George W Bush declared "Mission Accomplished", and congratulated the personnel of the US military and their allies on a job well done. However, the Bush administration had vastly underestimated the true scale of the pandora's box that their invasion of Iraq had opened. Instead of bringing peace to an authoritarian Middle Eastern country, the Iraq War would eventually result in he world's next great disaster....
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Ugh, mission accomplished indeed. Bloody chickenhawks.
 
Nice briefing on Iraq war, it's actually interesting in spite of being kind of overused or even forgotten narrative (I mean original US invasion and not still ongoing Iraqi conflict). I'm still a bit confused about forum changes, it also seems some of my comments from this thread are gone, but still I'm here and waiting for more. I'm especially eager to see the path that brought to situation you described in very start of AAR!
 
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Oooooh goodie! I am massively excited to see where this goes. I'll ride this train all the way to Finland Station.

*whispers* Can Farage! have some sort of role in the British resistance?
 
Nice briefing on Iraq war, it's actually interesting in spite of being kind of overused or even forgotten narrative (I mean original US invasion and not still ongoing Iraqi conflict). I'm still a bit confused about forum changes, it also seems some of my comments from this thread are gone, but still I'm here and waiting for more. I'm especially eager to see the path that brought to situation you described in very start of AAR!

If they were made between the 23rd and the move they are gone gone gone. If they were made after that the forums are still shaky and not fully up yet.
 
To. H.Appleby: Farage has a role in Britain, just not the role I think you were hoping for!
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Anyways, I hope thats not too much of a spoiler. ;)

To: everyone else: Thanks for the comments! I know this pace is much slower than what I usually do but these narrative updates are badly needed to give background to the overall story so I hope everyone will bear with me through these narrative updates, there are going to be quite a few left to go before we can get to the real action.

The Long Road to World War: Part 3
With Saddam Hussein's regime defeated, the Bush Administration believed that an easy transition to the creation of a stable, democratic, American allied Iraq would follow, with an easy occupation and paid for with oil revenue from Iraq's major oil fields. Instead, what followed was a bloody, expensive occupation of a country boiling with ethno-religious resentment. With Saddam Husseins repressive regime gone, Iraqi Sunni's, Shiites, and Kurds began to battle for influence, while other insurgents battled it out with American occupying forces.
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The insurgency picked up steam with each passing month. Major administrative mistakes made by the American imposed occupation authority such as the disbandment of Iraq's army (which put thousands of armed military trained men out of work) or the banning of the Iraqi Baath Party (which put thousands of people in Iraq's civil service and professional trades sectors out of work) fueled intense anger at the Americans. With no shortage of willing recruits seeking revenge against the Americans, major insurgent attacks increased, along with the resulting US casualty count. In intense battles with insurgent forces in cities like Najaf, Fallujah, and the so called "Sunni Triangle", hundreds of American and Coalition soldiers were killed, fueling anti-war resentment back in the United States and the homelands of the Coalition's member states.
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American tank firing in the Battle of Fallujah, one of the most violent battles of the Iraq occupation, where as many as 800 US and Coalition troops were killed, along with many hundreds of insurgents. Similar battles elsewhere in the country were taking a great toll on Coalition lives and wealth, and even forced some minor occupation partners to withdraw their contingents.

It soon became apparent that the insurgency was getting outside support such as weapons and training from other middle eastern countries. The Bush administration quickly pointed its finger at Iran, which it blamed for providing Shiite insurgents with advanced explosives to create IED's (improvised explosive devices) and EFP's (explosively formed penetrators) for destroying even heavily armoured US and Coalition vehicles. US forces were soon put on alert for a possible American invasion of Iran, while political rhetoric in the US for an American attack on Iran greatly increased, mirroring earlier talk that had resulted in the American invasion of Iraq. It was in this climate that Iran, in November of 2004, decided to finally test one of the nuclear weapons it had acquired from Pakistani Colonel Syed's defection to the country. In exercise "Smiling Allah", Iran exploded one of the Pakistani warheads underneath a mountain range in the country's east, showing to the entire world that it was now a nuclear weapon's state.
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The international community was shocked, and outraged. The Bush administration, now knowing that Iran had an unknown number of nuclear weapons, behind the scenes backed off from its rhetoric of attacking Iran and instead pushed for intense economic sanctions. Israel meanwhile responded to the Iranian test by declaring for the first time openly that it also possessed nuclear weapons, while conducting a series of major war games that were seen as practice runs for an air strike to decapitate Iranian nuclear capabilities, using its own nuclear weapons if necessary. However, intelligence agencies believed that trying to do so now was too late. Iran had managed to reverse engineer the Pakistani nuclear weapons to create its own domestic nuclear production, accelerating its nuclear program by many years. A nuclear Iran had now become a reality, something that was a game-changer in Middle Eastern geopolitics.
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Meanwhile, as countries all around the world began to implement more economic sanctions under the UN's leadership, Saudi Arabia, Iran's major rival for influence in the region, began to quietly make its own response. Saudi Arabia's leadership decided that if Shiite Iran had a nuclear bomb, Saudi Arabia had to have one as well, no matter what it would cost. Saudi Arabia pumped enormous funding into acquiring Uranium for enrichment and for the construction of nuclear facilities, as well as hiring scientists and technicians from places like Russia, France, Britain, and even some former Pakistani scientists living overseas. It quickly became public knowledge what Saudi Arabia was doing, but despite American attempts to coerce the Saudi's from pursuing its own nuclear program, such as reaffirmation of American protection under its nuclear umbrella, Saudi Arabia continued with its efforts and by February of 2006 the country tested its own nuclear device in the vast deserts of its Eastern province. The nightmare scenario of a nuclear armed middle east was complete.
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Filled with confidence thanks to its new nuclear arsenal, Saudi Arabia started what would become a massive Middle Eastern arms race. Saudi Arabia and its GCC (gulf cooperation council) allies, and Iran with its own allies and proxies, pumped enormous amounts of money into new weapons and military equipment. Both sides also battled for influence over the region, in places like Yemen, Lebanon, and most importantly Iraq, they armed and trained militia's, allies, and other groups that would fight for them against the other, fueling sectarian conflicts and rivalries throughout the middle east.
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Iranian and Saudi Military parades, both sides proudly showed off their growing arsenals of weapons, weapons which found their way into the hands of warring groups all over the Middle East
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Fueled by the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, insurgents in Iraq carried out deadly attacks against not only US and Iraqi Government forces but also against each other

In Iraq, this manifested into the Iraqi Insurgency becoming an all out civil war as Sunni and Shiite militia's fought each other in the streets for control of the country, while US and new Iraqi Government forces were caught in the middle. Iraq was seen by both Iran and Saudi Arabia as the prime strategic battleground, where final dominance of the region would be determined, resulting in both sides pouring immense resources into trying to secure Iraq into their respective camps. The resulting bloodbath drastically raised tensions between both sides, and by 2008, the final straw would at last break the camel's back....
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Oh my God; you're constructing literally a geopoliticall nightmare there! I don't even want to think what will hapen when the entire Middle East goes kaboom, as I'm sure it'll go.
 
Eh, I don't really know if I see Farage being complicit in a "puppet" government given how he presents himself, but then again one with a more cynical view could argue the complete opposite :p.
 
To: Dofon: If you find Farage's position kinda humorous, just wait until you see what I did with the rest of Europe! ;)

To: SotV: Thanks, I was trying to make a thorough and semi-realistic/plausible pre-war background to make this AAR more than just a "evil Russia+China decide to invade USA for reasons lol" kind of thing.

To: everyone else: thanks for the comments!

The Long Road to World War: Part 4
Iraq, July 10th, 2008. With tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia at a boiling point, sunni militia's attack and blow up a major shiite mosque in the city of Karbala. The attack happens in the middle of prayers, resulting in an enormous death toll of approximately 150 dead and double the number wounded. Similar attacks on other holy sites elsewhere in Iraq were answered by local militias, but this time, Iranian leaders had had enough of these attacks, and decided to respond themselves instead of through proxies. Iranian leaders announced on state run television the next day their intention to send Iranian troops into Iraq in order to protect them from attack. The prospect of Iranian soldiers occupying parts of Iraq brought Saudi threats to retaliate against the Iranians, saying that any movement of Iranian troops into Iraq would be interpreted by Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC as an invasion of their own territory. Iranian leaders rebuked the Saudi threat, and instead continued their preparations to move combat forces across the border and into Iraqi cities.
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With the Saudi threats appearing as more than just rhetoric and Iranian troop movements towards the Iraqi border being verified, the Bush administration decided to make a very difficult choice. The deaths of at least 9500 US troops in the 5 years since the occupation of Iraq had drained the American public of any further willingness to keep fighting for the violent and chaotic country. With anti-war sentiment at an all time high and a much more ferocious war on the horizon with the prospect of American lives being caught in the middle of two warring nuclear states, President Bush ordered the complete evacuation of all US military forces from Iraq and the Persian Gulf. American forces, escorted by Iraqi Army troops and Kurdish Peshmerga units, evacuated Iraq via the Turkish border, while American warships sailed from their bases in the Persian Gulf into the open waters of the Arabian Sea, and US Air Force units flew out of the region to NATO bases in Turkey and Europe. After about 2 weeks of hurried movement, the last American troops left Iraq on July 24th....just as the first Iranian units began to move over the Iraqi border.
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Ships of the US 5th fleet, packed full of American military and civilian personnel evacuating the Persian Gulf just before the commencement of hostilities. An Armada of vessels sailed alongside them, carrying people from all over the world just as the Great Middle Eastern War began to unfold

A final ultimatum by Saudi Arabia was sent to Iran's leaders, to withdraw their troops out of Iraqi territory or face open conflict. Iran did not bother to respond to the Saudi threat, resulting in Saudi Arabia and its allies declaring war on Iran and launching air raids on the advancing Iranian troops. Meanwhile, Saudi ground forces crossed into Western Iraq, in order to blunt the Iranian advance.
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Within hours, the entire Middle East appeared to erupt into flames. Iranian and Saudi troops began open combat with each other in the Iraqi cities of Basrah, Kut, Nasiriyah, and Baghdad itself, while Iraq's army, already divided along religious lines, splintered as various brigades and divisions aligned themselves with either side (most of the Iraqi army fell in with the Iranian forces). Iran meanwhile put contingency plans for war in the middle east into action, seeding the Straits of Hormuz with naval mines, launching air and missile attacks on coastal GCC cities, oil terminals, and military bases, and raiding Saudi flagged oil tankers using ships and aircraft. Iranian commando's even managed to briefly invade and occupy a portion of the tiny island state of Bahrain.
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Saudi artillery in action near Basra, the site of fierce fighting between GCC and Iranian troops
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Iranian Commandos, their invasion of Bahrain and occupation of many GCC held oil terminals and islands all over the Persian Gulf caught the GCC forces by surprise


Meanwhile, Iranian allies and proxies swung into action. Syria, Iran's major regional ally, declared war on Saudi Arabia and its allies and invaded Jordan, spearheaded by several elite armoured divisions. However, the Syrian Army would be halted by Jordanian tank and special forces units just outside the city of Az-Zarqa, a short distance north from the capital of Amman. Iranian alligned militia's and proxies would instead have much greater military effect on the Saudi's and their allies. Iranian backed Houthi militia's in Yemen would launch large cross border raids into the Saudi's southern frontiers, while militias rose up in predominately Shiite areas of eastern Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain as well. In Lebanon, militia's aligned with either side rose up and battled each other in the country's streets, leading to the outbreak of a 2nd Lebanese Civil War with the Lebanese Army and government caught in the middle, trying to reassert order.
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Syrian forces advancing into Jordan, their invasion would be halted just north of Amman by elite Jordanian special forces and tank brigades, rumoured to be under the direct command of Jordan's King Abdullah.
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Lebanon descended into a 2nd bloody civil war due to both sides activating their proxies in the country

On the ground, the seas, and in the air, both sides could claim successes as well as suffer major defeats. Iranian and GCC airforces dueled for air superiority over the Persian Gulf, with the IRIAF proving that its older aircraft could still throw down with the high tech equipment the GCC had due to better pilot training and new Russian air to air missiles and aircraft electronics purchased before the war. The Saudi RSAF in the end managed to secure most of the airspace over the western Persian gulf but lost about a 3rd of its prewar aircraft inventory doing so. At sea both sides sunk each others merchant ships with little regard to civilian losses, and blew up or occupied oil and gas terminals belonging to each other. Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia also launched dozens of ballistic missiles into each others cities, testing enemy missile defenses for vulnerabilities, in what many outside observers viewed as practice runs for the usage of nuclear weapons.
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Both the IRIAF and RSAF could claim major victories in the air war, but both sides suffered major losses of aircraft and pilots

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Oil became a major weapon of both sides in the war, as each targeted the other's oil production and export capacity. Tankers and offshore oil rigs became fair targets for both sides, something that helped spike the global price for a barrel of oil to $400 before the wars dramatic end.

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Like the Iran-Iraq war which raged from 1980-1988, a "War of the Cities" developed as each side fired ballistic missiles into the others major urban and industrial centres.

While this chaos unfolded across the region, not all countries had joined the conflict. Oman, which enjoyed healthy relations with both sides, offered up its territory as a location for peace negotiations. Israel meanwhile had mobilized its armed forces for combat but with neither side showing any signs of aggression towards Israel they were staying out of the fight. Egypt, the Arab world's most populated country and viewed as the most powerful of the middle eastern states outside of Israel, did not openly declare any sympathies to either side, despite intense lobbying by both Iran and Saudi Arabia to join the war and tip the balance decisively in their favour. Afghanistan also ignored pleas to join the war, not wanting to disturb the unprecedented peace and economic growth it was enjoying thanks to the immigration of millions of former Pakistani's into its country and the final surrender of the Taliban's last guerrilla groups. Instead the war went back and fourth, until finally, Iranian ground forces began to turn the tide on the Iraqi battlefront in its favour.
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The Great Middle East War: July-August, 2008. Red: Iranian and Allied Offensives, Black: GCC and Allied Offensives.

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Iranian tanks drive to the front late in the war. Iran's airforces would take heavy losses and lose most air superiority over the western Persian Gulf, but Iran's large and well trained army, backed by the manpower of hundreds of thousands of Basij reservists, allowed Iranian ground forces to gain the advantage.

After 3 weeks of intense fighting, Saudi Arabia's army in Iraq began to waver, as Iranian troops had finally secured Baghdad and laid siege to Fallujah, Ramadi, and other sunni arab strongholds in the country's west. Iranian tanks had also now crossed the Euphrates River while Iranian commando's and mechanized infantry had conquered most of Kuwait City from GCC forces. With the shiite insurgency in the east showing no signs of letting up and the ground war turning against them, Saudi commanders reported to the King that they could only hold out for about 1 or 2 more weeks at best before the Iranians breached the Saudi border and began marching on Riyadh. With defeat looking like it could become a reality, Saudi Arabia's King ordered the deployment of nuclear weapons...
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T

To: SotV: Thanks, I was trying to make a thorough and semi-realistic/plausible pre-war background to make this AAR more than just a "evil Russia+China decide to invade USA for reasons lol" kind of thing.


You're welcome...but I'm afraid you've broken my suspension of disbelief with this update.

First off, I don't buy for a second that the younger President Bush would have ever - under any circumstances - ordered a withdrawal from Iraq. Especially not to a threat from Iran. Secondly, the idea that the Saudi Arabian army could have presented a credible threat to the Iranians is...I'll be generous and say, "questionable".

I'll keep following because this is well written and there's certainly sillier butterflies flitting about the forum, but I'm afraid you've jumped directly into space bat territory.
 
And another nuclear war is coming.Soon the middle east will glow green at night.
Just wondering though,why on earth would the US and Russia disarm all nuclear warheads?Even a bit of hindsight would show that this is very wrong,niw Saudi Arabia and Iran are out of control.
Very well written by the way.
 
You're welcome...but I'm afraid you've broken my suspension of disbelief with this update.

First off, I don't buy for a second that the younger President Bush would have ever - under any circumstances - ordered a withdrawal from Iraq. Especially not to a threat from Iran. Secondly, the idea that the Saudi Arabian army could have presented a credible threat to the Iranians is...I'll be generous and say, "questionable".

I'll keep following because this is well written and there's certainly sillier butterflies flitting about the forum, but I'm afraid you've jumped directly into space bat territory.

I think update was pretty dramatic and still not too unplausible. I agree Bush would have hard time about deciding to withdraw from Iraq, but maybe anti-war movement in USA would grow really strong in face of all those American military casulties and general chaos in region that would be seen as ''helpless cause'' by even most hawkish American political public? After all there were 800 troops lots in Fallujah alone in timeline of this AAR storyline if I remember right. As for Saudi military strength, maybe they managed to keep massive Pakistani expeditionary force stationed there in spite of Indo-Pakistani nuclear exchange? They could also easily call for general defense of holy sites to mobilize population and foreign volunteers plus Jordan could be proved as quite capable ally too, I think that strength of their special forces was well described in last update. Maybe all that plus nuclear arms could give Saudis enough confidence for war in spite of the absence of American presence?
 
To: SotV: completely understandable, and I am very glad that you are going to continue to read! I guess I should further explain my logic:
1. The withdrawal of US forces is not necessarily due to direct threats from Iran or Saudi Arabia demanding that American forces leave (in such a scenario I am sure the Saudi's would be begging the Americans to stay!) but rather due to the need to save American lives from being lost to a nuclear exchange between two religiously motivated nuclear armed rivals bent on defeating each other. As Asalto mentioned in his response (and something that I should have more better explained) the Iraq War of TTL is on a far greater intensity that the one from OTL, not only driving up a far higher American casualty count (when I did my little Iraq War ingame I lost 3600 troops in the battle of Baghdad alone!) but also ramping up anti-war sentiment to such an extent that I figured many in the government, even of the Bush administration, would be advising to not sacrifice any more American lives and treasure for a region hell bent on ripping itself apart. Therefore, saving American lives becomes the top priority and they pull all American military and civilian personnel out before more are lost. Then again, I could be full of crap, and we could debate this until the cows come home! :D I guess I should say that the best thing to do would be to continue suspending the disbelief, as much crazier stuff will be coming up in this AAR as it goes along....like this for example.
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2. As for the Saudi's in a match up against Iran, we may agree more than I probably let on. On paper OTL they seem like a decently strong military, with about a quarter million personnel in their military and an extra 100k in their National Guard, but they seem to suffer from lack of real combat experience or training, just take their current military campaign over Yemen which even with high end American aircraft they are inflicting rather high civilian casualties. But in TTL they have had a few years of a major arms race to gear up and build their military for war, plus they have lots of allies like their GCC partners and the Jordanians on their side. But in the end, even after all that time to prepare for a real fight with Iran, note that I still had them eventually start to lose the ground war. ;)

Anyways, thanks for those questions, as such things help keep me on my toes and remind me that there are very high expectations of what I am writing! In the end such things can only result in hopefully a much better AAR for not only me to write but for everyone to enjoy!

To: Bill1993: After a nuclear holocaust in India and Pakistan which kills many millions of people, something that in our day and age would be plastered all over our newspapers, TV's, and internet websites, I figured even the most hawkish figures in countries like Russia and the US would begin to turn against the use of nuclear weaponry. However, note that I did not (yet) have them get rid of ALL of their nuclear weapons, just keeping a handful left just in case. After what is about to happen to the Middle East though, even that tiny deterrence force may become politically untenable to maintain due to domestic and international outrage against nuclear weaponry. (besides, I gotta find someway of writing out nuclear weapons as a factor in modern warfare for this AAR to work out!)

To: Everybody: thanks for your comments!

Some mood music for this next bit:

The Long Road to World War: Part 5
When Iranian ground troops began to break through GCC defense lines, the 2nd armageddon within 6 years was unleashed, when Saudi Arabia began to launch its nuclear missiles at targets in Iran, Syria, and on the battlefield. Iran responded in kind, firing ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads at cities and other targets all over the middle east. To further compound the tragedy, Israel, seeing missile launches en route to Jordan, mistook their trajectory as being targeted at Israel, forcing Israel's leaders to launch their own nuclear weapons at both GCC and Iranian targets, a move reciprocated by both Iran and Saudi Arabia. A 3 way nuclear exchange thus resulted, causing enormous damage all over the Middle East before a US led NATO bombing campaign intervened and destroyed what little remaining nuclear launch sites were still operational. In late August, 2008, the Great Middle Eastern War had ended, but at a terrible cost for the region and for the world.
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A rare photo of Tehran, near ground zero just after a Saudi nuclear weapon destroyed the city.
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Further damage from nuclear weapons was prevented by a very short NATO bombing campaign which finished off Iran's and Saudi Arabia's nuclear weapons sites, but was still too late to stop the destruction of vast swathes of the region. Israel also ceased firing its own nuclear weapons, having both realized its tragic mistake and also because there were no more targets of worth left to fire at.
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Sites of major nuclear weapons detonations, concentrated along the Persian Gulf coast, central Iran, and most of Iraq. Nuclear strikes in Amman, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Damascus destroyed their respective country's governments.

Yet again, an entire region of the world had been laid to waste by nuclear warfare. The human, environmental, and economic costs were staggering. At least 25 million people were estimated to have died in the nuclear exchange and resulting fallout. Fires from destroyed oil fields raged uncontrolled adding to the ecological catastrophe. The world price for a barrel of oil doubled from a wartime high of $400 dollars to $800 dollars as the earths prime oil exporting region went up in flames. Refugees fled in all directions in a 2nd mass migration, as the various governments of the middle east collapsed. The Arab monarchs, the Iranian ayatollahs, the Assad Regime in Damascus, and Israel's government were all effectively wiped out.
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A typical highway scene after the nuclear exchange, as refugees fled for their lives, abandoning their vehicles and whatever possessions they had left when they either ran out of gas or began to suffer the effects of radiation sickness.

With total governmental collapse, the international community once again stepped in with many billions of dollars worth of humanitarian assistance and with another large United Nations intervention force. UN peacekeepers from all over the world deployed into the region to enforce order and assist in the humanitarian effort, under the guidance of the United Nations Reconstruction Mission in South West Asia (UNRMSWA). Most of the Middle East fell under UNRMSWA's mandate, with only some peripheral areas left intact in various forms.
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UNRMSWA's administrative positions by March of 2015. Leading the mission was former US President and humanitarian activist Jimmy Carter, aided by Algeria's Lakhdar Brahimi and international spokesman Staffan de Mistura. Like their counterparts in UNRMSA, the Red Cross and INTERPOL were given jurisdiction over humanitarian aid, reconstruction, and internal security, while Tanzanian General Mella has led the way in hunting down former Saudi and Iranian officials suspected of war crimes. Egypt meanwhile took a leading role in providing peacekeeping forces for the region, due to it being the only major Arab state left standing, sending thousands of soldiers and two of its best commanders, General's Tantawi and Sisi which lead the wider UN military efforts. Sweden provided several squadrons of fighters and surveillance planes for air patrol, while Brazil sent a flotilla of ships for naval policing, leading to both countries having authority over air and naval efforts.

Elsewhere, the Middle East had changed dramatically. The Iranian city of Mashhad had avoided destruction in the nuclear exchange, and thus became the seat of government for the remnants of the Iranian state. With the ayatollah's and Iran's hardline leadership all dead, a technocratic administration under the lead of the remains of the old IRGC was established, to rule until the restoration of Iran's pre-war borders, something that will still be many years away. To the west, Iraq's Kurdistan region had also escaped missile impact, and thus managed to gain independence as the new Republic of Kurdistan (which also took authority over what was once northwestern Iran). The Kurdish area became the new home of many refugee's which have bolstered the Kurdish economy and military strength with new recruits.
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Meanwhile, Israel had been devastated by the nuclear exchange, with many of its cities being destroyed, including Jerusalem, which has been reduced to an enormous ruin. However, not all of Israel was devastated by the war, as a small area of land including the coastal city of Haifa escaped destruction. Haifa has since become the seat of government of a joint Israeli-Palestinian administration, often referred to as the "Haifa Safe Zone" or "Haifa Fortress", a heavily defended transit point/refugee camp/fortress city state that has become the jumping off point for hundreds of thousands of people moving to a new and hopefully better life in either Turkey, Europe, Cyprus, or North Africa. The city has however become the target for localized warlords, hoping to plunder the area around the city for supplies, weapons, or other loot, thus keeping the city's garrison on high alert for any violence. To better secure the area, most of the outskirts of the city have been walled off, and fortified by a mix of remnants of the IDF and Palestinian security forces.
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Some of the Haifa Safe Zone's fortifications, defended by a mix of both IDF and Palestinian forces, something that has helped foster a real partnership between both peoples, who now need to help each other to survive.

Finally, a far more sinister situation has developed in the power vacuum left behind by the end of the war. When Damascus was destroyed by a Saudi nuclear bomb, Syria's regime and all of its top civilian and military commanders went with it, resulting in the country descending into a short but brutal civil war. After the dust had settled and fighting between various factions ceased, only one group was left standing, a group easily viewed as the absolute worst one possible: the Islamic State of the Levant.
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A brutal terrorist organization, with its origins as an Al-Qaeda affiliate that had fought in Iraq, ISL grew into an organization so large that it formed its own country out of the ruins of Syria and later Northern Lebanon. Bolstered by thousands of desperate recruits, who fought simply for food, water, and shelter after being driven from their homes in places like Iraq or Jordan from the Great Middle East War, ISL quickly grew in strength, even absorbing former Syrian and Iraqi Baathists into its ranks. Before long, ISL, whose troops were battle hardened and fanatical in their cause, overwhelmed moderate rebel forces and eventually overran the last remnants of the old Syrian regime when the group's black flags were raised over Aleppo and Latakia. ISL today is regarded as the most brutal terrorist organization ever seen, armed to the teeth with enormous quantities of equipment it looted from the old Syrian Army, and a major threat to any hope of security in the region. Even now, ISL still continues to launch brazen raids into UNRMSWA territory, battling UN peacekeepers for precious supplies which it uses to maintain its grip on power over the cities and towns of Northern and Central Syria.
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ISL not only controls vast swathes of heavily populated lands in what was once northern Syria, it also has at its disposal an arsenal of heavy weaponry, like artillery and tanks which it looted from the now defeated Syrian Army
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ISL's top leadership by March of 2015, led by its mysterious leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has surrounded himself with similar jihadists as well as old members of the Syrian and Iraqi Baath Parties, which help the terror group in administration of its current lands.
 
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The worst misunderstanding between countries ever,leading in a three way nuclear war.The Fallout universe is coming one region at a time.
Also the Islamic State of Levant and the way it appeared reminds me of the Brotherhood of Nod.