Crescent Pact

**Dev. Status** | Conceptual

*"Away with all your superstitions*
*Servile masses arise, arise*

*We’ll change henceforth the old tradition*

*And spurn the dust to win the prize."*

-  "The International" by Eugène Pottier.
The Crescent Pact, or "Arabian Socialist Government" in technical terms, or "Desert Regiments of the Middle East North Africa Treaty Organisation" to use their more formal name are a specialist formation made from soldiers contributed by the United Arab Republic with some contributions by Iran and the recently absorbed Turks. Representing the Arab left wing, heterodoxical forms of leftism such as Marxist-Ba'athism, Nasserism, and Arab Communism inform the ideals of one of the Soviet Union's most loyal allies, though they have issues with their larger neighbour/ally the the Near-Eastern Socialist Organisation whose actions risk dragging the entire Socialist alliance into a war they are not prepared for and are struggling reining in their worst elements. Minor faction created by Tim the Grim Reaper.

## At a Glance

 **Motives** | Pan-Arabism, Revanchism, Socialism, Secularism

## Background

### Different Hues

Before World War II, Syria and Lebanon as well as Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq were controlled by France and Great Britain, respectively, despite many attempts of both states to gain independence. Even during the war, when the Soviets and Allies clashed across Europe, the Arab peoples wanted freedom. The mandate system that France and Britain had ruled them under in the name of "preparing them for democracy" was a lie, as they were ultimately treated as and governed like colonies. French rule in particular was despised due to the French tactics of favoritism towards Catholics as well as encouraging settlement by Pied-Noirs much like Algeria, in the hopes of establishing enclaves of French civilisation in the middle east.

However, it all changed when World War II started. The Soviets always realized the importance of the Arabian Peninsula, so when Stalin sent the Red Army into Europe, a contingent of several corps were sent into the Middle East to cut off the oil fields and then drive into North Africa to secure dominance over the Mediterranean. Unlike Europe, where despite the surprise from the Soviet "blitzkrieg", nations still used their factories and modern weapons to slow the Russians down, the former colonies were not as fortunate. Possessing only outdated vehicles and aircraft and greeted like Heroes by a population that despised the Colonists, the Soviets quickly liberated the Middle East down to Egypt, conquering the majority of the oil fields in the region.

The Allies, realizing too late their supplies had been undefended, didn't even attempt any sort of attack to reclaim these lands. Instead, the majority of efforts focused on the African and Anatolian fronts, far from the much of the population of the Middle East. The colonial rule of the middle east was widely hated in the countries openly ruled by the hand of Franco-British imperialism, and Stalin's offering of MCVs to the arab world to begin the process of rapid industrialisation was seen as a gift worth more than gold. Only in the Arabian Peninsula with its stodgy monarchies and desert tribes did the old order hold sway, while new Socialist Republics were born as crucial allies of the Soviet Union.

### Ringings of Revolution

When World War II ended, the situation in Middle East changed dramatically. While the Soviet Union may have been driven back in Europe, it was victorious in the Arab world as Gamal Abdel Nasser declared the birth of the United Arab Republic from Libya to Iraq. A nation that would soon be developed to match European standards of living as the MCV was used for peaceful development to turn what colonialism had left a ruin into a country that shocked the Allies by providing modern divisions that helped to halt efforts to break the grinding stalemate.

This cemented a long friendship between the left wing of western Asia and the Soviet Peoples, as those who had helped save mother Russia in its time of need with the dashing exploits of Arab and Iranian commanders whose divisions reinforced Soviet positions in the nick of time, in both Cairo and Moscow. It allowed for a negotiated end to the war that saw the Soviets able to reach a compromise with the Allies despite losing odds and being forced out of Europe and ensured the Allies would take a thoroughly defensive approach in the cold peace to come, who needed time to recover.

But it was also a glorious moment for the Middle Eastern Union. Certainly, it had proven to the world that the colonised people were no longer merely sidekicks but now were equals of any in what had once been the Imperial Core, and that the Soviet bloc model could elevate the impoverished countries outside the imperialising nations to the same level as the big brother of Soviet Russia, winning the admiration of many in Latin America and Africa as well as Asia. To the Arabs, trying to get sympathy for western europe was a losing cause as Nasser would famously say "I will be sad for the damage dealt to London's supposed cultural heritage, if such a thing even exists that wasn't stolen from the rest of the world, when the white bastards give us back the treasures of the Pharaohs and stop treating us as criminals for taking the Suez when its waters are bloody well ours."

### Deciding Round

Within hours of a Soviet plane being shot down by the Polish (allegedly), a third world war would begin.

The Middle Eastern Union, now ready to prove its part in the war, joined with the Soviet Middle Eastern theater command in helping to overrun the Arab world as well as try to knock Turkey out of the war as swiftly as possible. Though the Turks held for a time, when Soviet Balkan front troops struck at Thrace and then landed on Bodrum, the Turks would ultimately fall as the Turkish army was brought to surrender at the battle of Malazgrit.

Against the Indians, the socialist governments needed only to hold against them as the PLA and Soviet Central Asian fronts planned to push through the mountain ranges once the European, African, and Middle Eastern Allies were pushed back and the American Allies were no longer in a position to provide aid. Even India's vast hordes couldn't successfully push against all three communist powers through such abysmal terrain, and it seemed inevitable that soon it would be crushed once forces could be allocated.

Against the Coalition, they were instrumental in driving through the forces arrayed against Lenin's promise. With the advantage in surprise, preparation, and numerical superiority, they and their Soviet allies drove the Coalition into the Southern parts of the Arabian peninsula and away from their oil fields in the east, all while helping sweep right through Northern Africa in a dash to the Atlantic Ocean to link up with communist west African forces driving North. The impenetrable fortress nation of Kuwait was encircled and left to starve, and all seemed set for the end of Arabian monarchism.

Driving all the way to the Atlantic, it seemed that Communism's triumph was at this point inevitable. But everyone's priorities were forced into a rude paradigm shift when the Empire made its dream of world conquest known. Suddenly the Soviet hinterland, once thought safe and secure, became the avenue of a vicious assault by the Empire, which few paid attention to outside of it's intervention in World War II against Stalin and Mao.

Even Leningrad itself was struck and while the Allies were certainly not free of their own attacks as targets as far west as Gibraltar and as far east as Los Angeles all suffered attacks and southern Asia became the target of a gargantuan assault, it was in Russia that the attentions of Arab Command were drawn as they discussed whether they could still hold against the allies in Africa while the Soviet Army was rerouted to the motherland itself, with a volunteer force led by Khalid Bakdash joining to help the Union, reluctantly leaving their comprades behind to defend themselves. Ultimately they would have to pull back from much of North Africa in the face of heavy fighting with the African League and the Reactionary Guard. Though Algeria would hold, perhaps out of sheer spite for the French, it was now an isolate cut off from the UAR, while Libya found itself taken by the Syndicate. With another world war ending in another stalemate, the Pact had decidedly mixed results overall, but at the very least it was over.

Now the Crescent Pact's attention is increasingly called to its southern border as GLA formations seem to crash into the area time and time again without rhyme or reason beyond their status as Christian nations, and them repeatedly being wiped out with nary a second word that made any sense. There is also the question of the future of the UAR's present federal system, namely the great amount of Leeway it has given Iraq, Syria, and Egypt to largely run things in their own ways despite the significant differences between al-Bakr, Aflaq, and Nasser and whose vision will triumph in what is essentially three countries in a trench coat and Lebanon. The absorption of Turkey into the crescent pact also re-opens the Kurdish question, and whether it is time for the Austromarxist, the Leninist, or the Spartacist solution to the Middle East's rainbow of ethnicities, especially as al-Bakr's suppression of Kurdish ethnic identity causes issues. And finally their reunion with their people was rather mixed as those who stayed behind, renaming themselves the Near-Eastern Socialist Organisation, while rather welcoming to their comrades, and rather jealous as they fought with the Soviets, they have shown rather alarming tendencies in their hatred of non-communists, some outright delcaring the Union made a mistake in signing a peace treaty despite the fact that refusal would have, at best, led to a bloody war rivaling WW1, and has made their point clear in that, since the Africans never signed the treaty, that they should destroy those Africans, and the Idians while their at it, once and for all, despite such actions potentially dragging Russia into a war its not prepared for.

Now, the tales of purple robots and saucer-riding aliens are more persistent than ever. The Syndicate and the League both vie for control of Africa more fiercely than ever before, and both the Pact and the League hope to appeal to a mutual foe/rival in the GLA and India to court their aid, hampered by the NESO insistence they should not fraternise with the enemy unless it makes them realise the benevolence of communism. Even the United States, once a united and staunch foe of communism, is essentially a chaotic state in an increasingly jumbled and confusing civil war.

The world has changed, but the Socialists continue to hold strong to the promise of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, that the way of the Reds is the way that all the world shall soon follow. Workers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains!

## Army

### Iranian Red Army Reinforcements

When the Desert Corps are in trouble, the Iranian Red Army can dispatch a unit of specialized warriors and vehicles via North Iraq. While technically part of the greater Soviet armed forces, Iranian forces are more customized for this region and the combat that takes place here, but still keep most of the Soviet top weapons in the stores.

## Deathmatch Protocols

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