Re: [HOE] The Last War-Middle east

[PEGTeller@aol.com]

Well, from an unofficial view:
Israel as a state might not even exist in HoE. Coming about as it did from our real-world WWII, the changes in the HoE universe in the 1930s-1940s might be enough that it was never founded. The US neutrality until the very end when it was clear the Allies (UK/CSA/USSR) would win, the invasion of the American mainland that Shane has mentioned to me before-unoffically--all mean that Nazi Germany might have had more time to totally exterminate the European Jewish population to feed their diabolic Reckoner-driven war machine. 
As to the rest of the Middle east, the reliance on Ghost Rock as opposed to oil might mean that American oil reserves lasted longer than they did in real life. With the widespread use of GR as a fuel, the advent of fusion power, and "new science" devices that didn't use petroleum products, the Middle east might have been just another poor backwater. Even the need for petroleum for plastics wouldn't have made them the money necessary for their current states (or worth fighting over). I'd bet that oil reserves would have been exploited closer to home in Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico. If anyone pushed the Middle east to become an oil producing area, it would be the US. No Texas or Oklahoma oil, Canada an enemy, the caribbean a CSA lake, North Sea fields controlled by an enemy UK--the US would be hurting for oil. Either they buy from their enemies, trade for coal (which is plentiful in the US (PA, WY, WV)), or develop synthetic substitues like their buddies the Nazis in the 1940s.
Just my take on things,
Teller