Arabia (An Honorable Retelling)

United States of Arabia الولايات المتحدة العربية
Flag Coat of arms
Capital		Muscat
Largest city		Damascus
Other cities		Jerusalem, Amman, Baghdad, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Mecca, Sanaa, Medina, Tal ar-Rabeea
Official languages		Arabic
Regional languages		Yemenite Hebrew, Aramaic
Demonym		Arabian
Government		Federal presidential constitutional republic
-	President	Jamal Khashoggi
-	Vice President	Ahmed al-Sharaa
Legislature		Congress
-	Upper house	Council of Deliberations
-	Lower house	Federal Senate House of Representatives
Population
-	2025 census	70,382,912
Currency		Arabian riyal (AR)
Drives on the		right

Arabia, officially the United States of Arabia (U.S.A.) (Arabic: الولايات المتحدة العربية), is a country located in West Asia, bordering Persia to the north, Phoenicia to the northwest, and Egypt to the west. With a population of 70 million, Arabia is the 8th most populous country on the Asian continent and the third most populous country in West Asia, trailing only Rhomania and Persia. As a federal presidential constitutional republic, Arabia is a federation of 14 states and three autonomous cities: Mecca, Medina, and Damascus. The country is a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Global Treaty Organization and the League to Enforce Peace.

Historically, Arabia has been at the center of several important trade routes due to being located at the intersection of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. This interconnectedness would result in the rapid spread of Islam, originating on the Arabian Peninsula, in Africa and Asia. Arabia remains the center of Islam, with millions of pilgrims coming to Mecca each year to complete the pilgrimage. Much of Arabia's recent history has been defined by the dynamic between Islamic theology and the actions of the government on the peninsula, which is often in conflict with said theology. Despite this, over 90% of Arabia's population are Muslim.

History

Prehistory and pre-Islamic history

The rivers of ancient Arabia

The earliest evidence of homo sapiens inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula dates back to roughly 63,000 years ago. However, it has widely been hypothesized that earlier holmiids arrived to Arabia when the landscape was still "green" roughly 300,000 years ago. Arabia would remain green and temperate until 5,000 years ago when the peninsula became drying up and changing into a desert climate.

The earliest documented human settlements on the Arabian Peninsula were the Dilmun civilization on the eastern side of the peninsula and the Kingdom of Kinda in the central region of the peninsula. In the Hejaz region, there is also evidence that the biblical Midianites originated there prior towards expanding into the region of Palestine. The history of Arabia prior to the spread of Islam remains partially shrouded in mystery due to a last of extensive documentation.

Rise of Islam

The seal of Muhammad

Muhammad, the prophet and central figure in Islam, was born in Mecca around 570, started preaching in the city in 610, and relocated to Medina in 622. In Medina, Muhammad unified the tribes of Arabia under the banner of Islam, culminating in the creation of a single Muslim state on the Arabian Peninsula. Following his death in 632, a successor to Muhammad would emerge in Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr became leader of the Muslims as the first caliph and would attack the Eastern Roman Empire as part of the first initial wave of Islamic expansion outside the Arabian Peninsula. This initial caliphate established in the aftermath of Muhammad's death would become known as the Rashidun Caliphate. While Islam would fail to expand into Persia during this time, the Rashidun Caliphate still found great success expanding into Egypt and the rest of North Africa. By 711, Islam had come to encompass Arabia, southern Mesopotamia, Egypt, Morrocco, West Africa, and the southern Iberian Peninsula. This period would also be marked by the growth of Islamic arts, sciences, and philosophy which would eventually become known as the Islamic Golden Age. During the Islamic Golden Age, Arabian innovations such as the Arabic numerals and Algebra الجبر (al-jabr), became widespread and were concentrated in prestigious institutions such as the Baghdad House of Wisdom.

Going into the 11th century, West Asia would be stuck in a three-way stalemate between the Orthodox Christian Eastern Roman Empire, the Manichaeist Persian Empire, and the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate. The Persian capital city of Ctesiphon, the holiest city in Manichaeism, was located only 35 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. As a result, this 35-kilometer corridor became known as the "valley of blood." An estimated 30,000 Arabian soldiers were estimated to have died in border skirmishes in the 1310s alone. Despite these intense border skirmishes, the borders remained unchanged, and both capitals remained in close proximity to one another.

Fracturing of the Abbasid Caliphate and the rise of Oman (1517-1805)

Caliphal banner of the Abbasid Caliphate

Extent of the Omani Empire (1715)

Despite its dominance in the levant and North Africa, the Abbasid Caliphate began to decline due to external pressures and internal turmoil. One of the largest factors in the Abbasid Caliphate’s decline was internal uprisings by the Mamluks. Mamluks, non-Arab slave-soldiers who constituted a large portion of the Abbasid military, began amassing greater political power that directly challenged the rule of the Abbasids. By 1517, the Mamluks had toppled the last remnants of the Abbasid Caliphate and established their own state in Egypt. With no central authority to control Arabia, the peninsula began to fracture into smaller kingdoms, sultanates, and tribal polities. Following the collapse of Abbasid rule in Arabia, maritime powers such as Portugal moved into the region and captured key cities on the coast of the peninsula such as Muscat. The Portuguese controlled Muscat In 1624, Nasir bin Murshid would unify Oman and be proclaimed as Imam of Oman. Under the Yarubi dynasty, the Omani Empire would emerge as the dominant power in Southern Arabia, directly competing with France and Portugal for influence in the Arabian Sea. By the 1700s, the Omani Empire had come to encompass much of the Gulf of Persia, all of Southern Arabia, and much of coastal East Africa through its vast sphere of influence. From 1749 onwards, Oman would be organized as a sultanate, with the first Sultan of Oman being Ahmad bin Said al-Busaidi. The decline of the Portuguese Empire, and riches flooding Omani markets from Muqaddas via Mali, resulted in the 18th century becoming known as the Omani Golden Age. Oman's rise, coupled with the French colonization of Bharat, resulted in Oman becoming the center of wealth in the Indian Ocean going into the 19th century.

Omani unification of Arabia (1805-1825)

Sultan Said bin Sultan, inspired by Napoleon's conquest and consolidation of Europe in the aftermath of the Second Great War, sought to replicate Napoleon's success in the fragmented Arabian Peninsula and unite the Arabs under the banner of the Al Bu Said dynasty. Increased revenue from the Mali Empire via trade in Muqaddas and their possessions in East Africa allowed for Said bin Sultan to build a large army consisting of mercenaries and soldier-slaves. By 1805, the Omani Empire had transformed from a largely maritime empire into the empire with the fourth-largest land army in West Asia.

From 1806 to 1810 in the Omani-Qasimid Wars, the Omani Empire would successfully conquer the Qasimid State and claim ownership of much of southern Arabia, with the empire's borders reaching as far as 5 kilometers south of Mecca by 1822. During these initial conquests of neighboring polities, Omani military leadership favored a policy of collaboration and cooperation from locals rather than assimilation into the Omani state. This allowed greater incentive towards local Arabian polities who sought to join the Omani Empire for protection in exchange for the preservation of local governance and a degree of autonomy. In contrast, the second-largest polity in the Arabian Peninsula, the Emirate of Diriyah, sought active conquest of neighboring polities. As a result, conflict between the Omanis and the Emirate of Diriyah was inevitable.

In 1825, the Sharifate of Mecca became a protectorate of the Omani Empire, giving the Omanis de facto control over the Hejaz region. With the coasts unified, the Omanis turned their attention inland and launched an all-out war against the Emirate of Diriyah. Outnumbered by the Omanis, the Emirate crumbled, and its leaders were massacred. Without any resistance against the Omanis in Arabia, Sultan Said bin Sultan proclaimed himself as "Sultan of Arabia." This is the beginning period of the Sultanate of Arabia. During this period, In the same year, the Sultanate of Arabia would reconquer Muslim lands in the levant from the Persians, capturing Jerusalem, Damascus, and Baghdad. The recapturing of these famous Islamic cities, coupled with the elimination of any substantive resistance on the Arabian Peninsula, resulted in the Sultanate of Arabia transforming from a loose confederation of Omani allies into a unitary state under the command of Muscat in the decades following the 1820s.

Consolidation and societal transformation (1825-1924)

During the mid-1800s, various polities that had allied with the government in Muscat saw their autonomy gradually stripped away as Said bin Sultan sought to consolidate control over clients such as the Qasmids. A desire to nation-build and to create a common Arabian national identity were the ultimate driving factors behind this pivot towards forced assimilation by the Omani government.

The funding of state-loyal Madrasas by the Muscat government increased exponentially during this period, the assassination of local leaders who actively opposed Omani rule, and the construction of a Hejaz Railway that connected Damascus to Mecca for Muslims across the world completing the haji. Through the consolidation of the fractured polities in Arabia, greater societal change also began to occur throughout much of the peninsula in the 1800s.

In the northern part of the Sultanate of Arabia, industrialization had begun to occur along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Cities such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Jerusalem became hubs of industrial growth, fueled by their proximity to European markets and access to waterways as opposed to the rest of Arabia which was primarily desert. By the 1850s, the Age of Oil was in full swing, and the discovery of oil led to a radical transformation of Arabian society from primarily agricultural and pastoral society from a stationary energy-based economy. By 1900, small villages such as Riyadh were transformed into large metropolitan cities that acted as the backbone of Arabia's burgeoning economy. Urban sprawl and expansion in the late 1800s also resulted in the decline of Bedouin communities in northern Arabia, the growth of a middle class, and increased class struggle between working class Arabians in city centers and the monarchy and their benefactors who sought to control the growing oil industry to benefit themselves.

Going into the 20th century, the Sultanate of Arabia faced many issues. An insurgent Persian Empire and industrialized Bharat threatened their monopoly on Arabian Sea trade. To counteract the resurgence of the Persian Empire, Arabia allied with Rhomania and Russia in a mutual defense pact now known as the Trilateral Alliance. In the leadup to the Third Great War, a series of alliances including the Trilateral Alliance would see Arabia dragged into the conflict on the side of the Allied powers, fighting the Franco-Persian Alliance in West Asia. Defending the cities of Damascus and Baghdad from Persia would prove costly, with 30,000 soldiers on both sides dying in the first 2 months of 1915 alone.

While morale was high entering the Third Great War, by the end of 1917 however, popular opinion had turned against the war and against Sultan Taimur bin Feisal. Despite the larger opposition forming to him, Taimur bin Feisal continued to support the war on the grounds of regaining “core Islamic territories” such as the cities of Damascus and Baghdad, which had fallen to the Persians. The Sultan and his supporters often invoked the concept of jihad (lit. “struggle”) to justify continued involvement in the conflict against the perceived Manicheaist Persian threat. Islamic nationalists in Arabia sought to permanently cripple Persia by capturing the Levant and their capital city of Ctesiphon, solidifying Islamic rule in the Levant permanently and eliminating Manicheaism from its close proximity to Baghdad. As a result, Sultan Taimur bin Feisal gave speeches throughout the war emphasizing the struggle of Arabia as being a struggle of the global Islamic diaspora, thus laying the stones for the origins of contemporary Pan-Islamism.

In direct opposition to the Islamic nationalists were the leftists. Following the Industrial Revolution and subsequent societal transformation of the Arabian Peninsula, segments of the burgeoning Arabian working class were increasingly gravitating towards communist and socialist ideologies. This was especially evident in the oil sector as workers on Arabian oil fields were often poorly paid, not unionized, and faced violent repression when organization was attempted such as the Riyadh Massacre of 1899. As a result, leftists represented a large portion of the Arabian body politic going into the Third Great War. Their opposition to the war on the grounds of it being “capitalist infighting” made them increasingly popular by the late 1910s as Arabia’s involvement in the war was becoming more and more costly. It was in this context of tension and geopolitical unpopularity that the Communist Party of Arabia, led by Khalid Bakdash, would emerge as a revolutionary force.

By 1919, the Persian-Arabian front of the Third Great War would come to an end as both countries would collapse into socialist revolutions that protested continued involvement in the war. The Persian revolutionaries, led by Georgian-born Youssef Litonis, toppled Empress Zarghami’s government rather quickly and began providing cross border assistance to the Arabian revolutionaries. In contrast to the quick nature of the Persian revolution, the Arabian Civil War was a complicated and drawn out affair lasting for nearly 5 years. Khalid Bakdash’s left-wing coalition was large in scale, encompassing communists, reformist socialists, social democrats, Islamic socialists, and Bedouin who opposed the Sultanate due to their policy of land reclamation, and Yemeni Jews and other Dhimmi who felt alienated by the Sultanate’s full scale embrace of Islamic nationalism. By 1922, most of the urban areas of the Hejaz and Mesopotamia fell under socialist control while the Sultan remained holed up in Muscat and loyalists consolidated around the Gulf Coast. This stalemate would last for another 2 years until Socialist Persia began a full-scale invasion of the Gulf Coast. On 22 October 1924, Sultan Taimur bin Feisal officially fled to Bharat and the socialists marched on Muscat, proclaiming the triumph of socialism and the formation of a “People’s Republic of Arabia” with Bakdash as the country’s first official president.

Socialist era (1924-1986)

Khalid Bakdash, President of the People's Republic of Arabia (1924 - 1986)

The initial years of the People’s Republic of Arabia proved to be turbulent. This turbulence, in part, stemmed from the various competing factions and ethnic groups that made it the broader socialist movement and Bakdash’s efforts to unify those varying factions into a cohesive government. The largest internal conflict faced by Arabia was between the more secular, urban, German-Persian aligned socialist faction led by Ali al-Assad and the pro-Mali Islamic socialists, whose base was Bedouin and primarily rural religious communities. led by Fayez Aziz.

To overcome this schism, Bakdash often presented himself as a “centrist” within the Arabian socialist movement, giving concessions to both the secular and religious factions within his ranks. For instance, Bakdash offered a “declaration of friendship” with both Luxemburg’s Germany and Litonis’ Persia in 1926, aligning itself with what would eventually become the socialist bloc in the aftermath of the Fourth Great War and start of the Cold War. At the same time, Bakdash placated the Islamic socialists within his ranks by preserving the Sharifate of Mecca as an autonomous region within the People’s Republic, allowing for the Sharif to remain autonomous yet contiguous with the socialist state. The nationalization of the Hejaz Railway was also made free for any pilgrims traveling to Mecca and Medina.

Outside of internal factionalism, another threat to the early republic was hostility from neighboring non-socialist states. Rhomania, a close ally to the Al Bu Said dynasty and an arch rival of the now-socialist Persians, proved to be the biggest most immediate threat to the People’s Republic. Using their colony in Egypt, Rhomania began amassing a large army on the border with Arabian Palestine throughout the 1930s as part of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos’ policy of “containment” towards non-liberal states. At the same time, the emergence of a Hindu-fascist government in Bharat led by Savitri Devi sought to assert hegemony over the Arabian Sea, resulting in a large naval buildup in the region which directly threatened the Arabian capital in Muscat.

Mimicking Litonis’ Persia to the north, Bakdash called on a “five year plan” to industrialize the Arabian cities startling the Persian Gulf and to transform the Arabian economy into a war economy with adequate naval infrastructure. From 1936 to 1940, the Arabian Navy had quadrupled in size. Calling the naval build-up an “act of aggression,” Devi formally declared war on Arabia on 6 June 1941, bringing the country into the Fourth Great War.

Coat of Arms used by the People's Republic of Arabia

In his speech reciprocating the declaration of war by Bharat, President Bakdash proclaimed the war to be “the final struggle between socialism and barbarism, with the capitalist powers and fascist Hindus taking the side of barbarism.” Mass mobilization occurred, with both men and women being recruited into the Arabian Navy to fight the Bharatis in the Arabian Sea. While not sharing a direct land border with Bharat, the naval battles that occurred between the two throughout the Indian Ocean from 1941 to 1945 would claim the lives of over 20,000 Arabian sailors.

Internally, the Fourth Great War would be fought on Arabian soil, primarily in Palestine, between the Arabian government and the fascist Zionist movement known as the Lehi. The Lehi, led by Avraham Stern, sought to mobilize the tiny Jewish minority within the province of Palestine to establish a homogenous Jewish state independent from Arabia. The Lehi had early successes, proclaiming a “State of Israel” on 12 June 1943 aligned with the French and Bharatis and seizing Jerusalem the following day. Despite these successes, the combined forces of the Arabian People’s Army and a Rhomanian naval blockade of Israel would result in the breakaway state being crushed by 1945, ultimately killing the Zionist movement with it.

With the Zionists defeated, the Arabian war effort shifted fully towards the Arabian Sea during the last months of the Fourth Great War. On 16 October 1945, the Battle of Socotra saw the Arabian Navy land a decisive victory against Bharat, with 80% of Bharat’s Indian Ocean fleet destroyed in the surprise Arabian ambush. The surrender of Bharat and the occupation of the Indian Subcontinent by the Western allies, tensions would once again arise between Socialist Arabia and the Western powers who had re-established themselves in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. As a result, Arabia was solidly in the German bloc/Frankfurt Pact going into the Cold War.

During the early phases of the Cold War, Arabia and Persia had remained stalwart allies in the fight against the English-led fascist bloc and the Russo-Columbian-led Global Treaty Organization (GTO). On 16 June 1954, both nations were admitted to the Frankfurt Pact. Germany, Persia, and Arabia formed the bulk of the Frankfurt Pact’s military and economic prowess, resulting in the pact gaining the nickname the “Triple Alliance”. Arabia’s massive oil reserves also proved lucrative, with Arabia providing energy that fueled the rapid expansion of Germany’s military presence not only in West Asia but also in highly contested areas such as the Italian alps, East France, and San Esteban. This resulted in Arabia derogatorily being referred to as “Germany’s gas station” by Western media.

With German money flowing through the country, President Bakdash was able to engage in massive infrastructural and modernization projects. The Pan-Arabian Railway was completed on 12 June 1962 and connected the Hejaz Railway and the Persian Gulf Railway with the capital city of Muscat through utilizing the newest high speed maglev technology. Cross peninsula travel time was cut from 3 days to just 5 hours, linking the Arabian economy and metropolitan areas in a way that had not been done before. However, the Siberian oil fires and the shift away from oil in the 1960s would have devastating consequences for the People’s Republic of Arabia.

On top of the worsening economic crisis, the German-Persian split would have devastating consequences for Arabia’s military. While Persia and Arabia had improved their relations in though mutual participation in the Frankfurt Pact, Persian leader Youssef Litonis’ declaration of “Socialism in One Country” and subsequent embrace of Persian nationalism in the 1960s led to the historical rivalry between both nations re-emerging once again. On top of dealing with internal economic decline, Arabia was forced into deficit spending in order to amass a large enough border force to defend Baghdad and the Corridor of Blood.

By the 1970s, the Arabian economic surplus had run out and issues with the country’s command economy resulted in austerity being imposed on Arabian citizens. While President _____ was popular with his people due to the economic growth and increased quality of life Arabia had experienced under the People’s Republic, public opinion began to sour on him as the oil-based economy dried up due to zero international investments, unemployment skyrocketed, and the regime had not subsequently invested in alternative fuel and was accused of mismanaging foreign aid from the Frankfurt Pact.

Rather than respond to the concerns of the public, the political elite that had come to rule the People’s Republic grew out of touch with the concerns of everyday citizens. A study from the University of Medina showed that between 1972 and 1986, poverty steadily increased amongst middle- and lower-class Arabians decreased while economic consumption from the top 5% of Arabians steadily increased during the same period. This growing class divide in a state that purportedly sought to represent the working class led to increased violence from both left wing and right-wing dissident groups.

Saddam Hussein, a former Arabian Communist politician and dissident to the Bakdash regime

On the right, groups such as Al-Qaeda had emerged. Championing Islamic nationalism, Al-Qaeda and their leader Osama bin Laden preached that Arabian identity was inherently tied to Islamic identity and that the socialist government was illegitimate and a puppet to European powers such as Germany. The group engaged in acts of sabotage and violence against the government, such as the destruction of government buildings and railroads. On the left, left-wing nationalists such as Saddam Hussein and his outlawed Arab Socialist Party preached that the People’s Republic and Communist Party had abandoned their socialist principles, resulting in state and societal decay from what was otherwise a state founded by virtuous intentions.

Despite their differences in ideologies, these dissident groups were violently suppressed all the same. The most egregious act of suppression came on 4 June 1981 with the total massacre of the bin Laden family and any members and associates of Al-Qaeda. Fearing similar retribution, Hussein chose self-exile to Persia a month later. The Arab Socialist members who weren’t able to follow Hussein into Persia were subsequently hunted down and killed. While the purges temporarily stopped public displays of dissent, they only created resentment. Germany, in the midst of its own great reforms and efforts at liberalizing, condemned these purges by Chancellor Hans Modrow and cut off all foreign aid to Arabia by June 1984. With Arabia’s only major economic and military partner withdrawing support from the socialist regime, an emboldened opposition would receive support from a military mutiny and lead a march on Muscat on 16 June 1986.

Ahmed Jibril, acting President of Arabia in 1986

In Muscat, the military under general Ahmed Jibril received massive support from the public while any supporters of the socialist regime had evacuated to Germany at Proletarian Airport in downtown Muscat. The subsequent socialist holdouts in the territory of Zanzibar and East Africa also surrendered quickly. With President Bakdash gone and his supporters scattered, General Ahmed Jibril proclaimed a “provisional Arabian government” to last six months until a constitution was drafted. This move was backed by both the LTEP and the IMF who sought to cultivate a technocratic and economically obedient government on the Arabian Peninsula. After tense negotiations between the IMF, LTEP, German diplomats, and General Jibril, the “Treaty of Muscat” was ratified on 16 June 1986 and would act as the official constitution of the newly created “United States of Arabia,” with its constitution heavily inspired by the United States of Columbia.

Contemporary Arabia (1986-present)

Milovan Friedman, member of the IMF-backed "Troika" that governed Arabia from 1986 to 2016

The constitution created the position of President of Arabia as a citizen of Arabia who would serve two 4-year terms and have distinct, separate powers from Congress. Federalism was preserved in order to protect the religious communities of Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, and the State of Yemen. A tricameral legislature with a House of Representatives, Federal Assembly, and Council of Deliberations was also established. While the constitution largely a replica of the United States, the most controversial provision in the constitution was the establishment of an IMF-backed “Troika” that would directly govern Arabian economic policy for 30 years from 1986 until 2016. The troika consisted of three members: famous Rhomanian economist Efthymios Christodoulou, Russian economist and former political advisor Milovan Friedman, and Chinese economist Deng Xiaopeng. During this period, the IMF was to hold the power over Arabia while the president was reduced to essentially a figurehead.

The first elected President of Arabia was Edward Said of the United Arab Technocracy Party (UATP) from the State of Palestine. Said campaigned on the promise of “competent meritocratic governance” in contrast to the kleptocracy that had existed before. His specific campaign policies also included diversifying the Arabian economy through heavy investments into solar and nuclear energy via the IMF, the utilization of the newest geo engineering technology to increase Arabia’s agricultural abilities in the desert, and to get Arabia into the Global Treaty Organization to align with the United States and Russia against continued Persian aggression on their northern border. While some nationalists denounced Said as a sellout to the IMF, the steady increase in growth and economic stability made him a widely popular figure among the average Arabian and internationally. This international icon status led to Said becoming a face of the “Tsongas Wave” of pro-democracy leaders in the 1980s alongside Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, U.S. President Paul Tsongas, the German reformer Egon Krenz, the Novanglian Prime Minister Paul McCartney, and Michalis Dukakis of Rhomania.

During his eight years as tenure, Said worked with the troika and Congress to ensure the passage of many of these initiatives. The IMF backed Said’s solar and nuclear initiatives, with over 12 nuclear power plants being built and opened between 1987 and 2000. By 2003, Arabia’s energy production level had matched pre-1965 levels, the first time in decades that energy production became a net gain rather than a net loss. During this period, the United Arab Technocracy Party would also win six out of the seven Arabian presidential elections held from 1986 to 2010. The implementation of a Georgist land value tax also helped to preserved domestic Arabian industries from outsourcing. This embrace of Georgism and technocracy would lead to U.S. President Arthur Fletcher declaring Arabia a “model ally” and approving the country’s succession into the Global Treaty Organization on 6 October 1998.

By 2016, the troika had declared Arabia to be “sufficiently stable both economically and societally” and officially withdrew their work from the country. While Arabia’s economic recovery benefitted the public at large and the international community, many inland Bedouin communities suffered from IMF-imposed austerity and the agricultural geo-engineering projects threatening their traditional way of life. As a result, a rural-urban divide led to populist firebrand Bashar al-Assad of the Socialist Party being elected president in 2018. However, with a deeply ingrained technocratic tradition in Congress and the UATP having a supermajority in all 3 chambers of Congress, Assad was not able to accomplish much and was defeated in his re-election bid by UATP Senator Jamal Khashoggi in 2022. Khashoggi has continued to stay the course of technocracy and collaboration with the international community.

Government and politics

Separation of powers

Jamal Khashoggi, President of Arabia since 2022

As outlined in the Constitution of 1986, the Arabian government is split into three distinct branches: the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch.

The President of Arabia is the commander in chief of the Arabian military and is the sole leader of the executive branch. The President also serves as both the head of state and head of government of Arabia, acting both as the chief diplomat of Arabia during overseas diplomatic visits and also as the chief enforcer of legislation passed by Congress. While during the socialist era the President of Arabia exercised near-unlimited power, the current constitution has resulted in a weaker Presidency that can be countered by Congress via vetoes, impeachment, and rejecting the President's cabinet appointments. The current President of Arabia is Jamal Khashoggi who was elected in 2022 and is up for re-election in 2026.

The Congress of Arabia, formed in 1986, meets in the Palace of the Republic (formerly known as Al Alam Palace) in Muscat and acts as the legislative branch of the Arabian government. Congress is primarily tasked with creating laws for the country and providing oversight and countering the power of the executive branch. Arabian Congress is tricameral, meaning it consists of three distinct chambers: the House of Representatives, the Federal Senate, and the Council of Deliberations. The House of Representatives has 200 seats with proportional representation; states are given a certain number of districts based on census data and population in a process known as apportionment. In contrast, representation in the Federal Senate of Arabia is equal, with each state being allotted 3 senators regardless of size or population.

States and subdivisions

States

State	Flag	Capital	Population
Abu Dhabi		Abu Dhabi	4,106,427
Ad Dakhiliyah		Nizwa	506,123
Ad Dhahirah		Ibri	324,493
Al-Bahah		Al-Bahah	339,174
Al Batinah		Rustaq	1,390,040
Al Buraimi		Al-Buraimi	125,761
Al-Jouf		Sakākā	595,822
Al-Qassim		Buraidah	1,336,179
Al Wusta		Haima	153,392
Ash Sharqiyah		Ibra	604,124
Asir		Abha	3,283,139
Bahrain		Dammam	7,492,392
Damascus		Damascus	17,543,021
Dhofar		Salalah	408,419
Iraq		Baghdad	46,118,793
Jordan		Amman	11,393,083
Kuwait		Kuwait City	4,985,716
Musandam		Khasab	105,329
North Yemen		Sanaa	18,432,491
Palestine		Ramallah	15,483,450
Riyadh		Riyadh	8,591,748
South Yemen		Aden	12,432,129

Territories

Territory	Flag	Capital	Population
Comoros		Moroni	883,075
Djibouti		Djibouti City	1,066,809
Tanganyika & Zanzibar		Zanzibar	14,329,130

Autonomous cities

City	Flag	Capital	Population
Capital District		Muscat	1,720,000
Mecca		Mecca	2,427,924
Medina		Medina	1,477,0475
Jerusalem		Jerusalem	1,253,900

Political parties

Al Alam Palace, the meeting place of the Arabian Congress

As of the 2022 presidential election, Arabia is considered a "dominant party democracy," meaning only one party manages to win elections despite elections being free and fair. Since democratizing in 1986, the United Arab Technocracy Party (UATP) has won every single Arabian presidential election with the exception of 2016. This, coupled with their unbreakable supermajority in the Arabian Congress, has made them the dominant party in Arabia's political system. The party is the bulwark in support of Arabia's secularist, federalist, technocratic status quo that has existed for decades. Despite their dominance, there are 4 other parties who are also represented in Arabia's parliament despite the UATP's dominance. As of 2024, the UATP controls 157 of the 200 seats in the House of Representatives and 30 of the 56 seats in the Federal Senate.

The second largest party in Arabia's Congress is the Socialist Party of Arabia, formed in 1990 by alumni of the former Communist Party of Arabia. Despite officially claiming to be a democratic socialist political party, the Socialist Party functions as a big tent of various left-wing ideologies opposed to the UATP. Members of the Socialist Party's big tent include the Bedouin and rural Arabians, left-wing nationalists, social liberals, agrarian socialists, and pacifists. Their leader in the House of Representatives is Rashida Tlaib while their Federal Senate leader is Nouri al-Maliki. As of 2024, the Socialist Party holds 23 seats in the House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Federal Senate.

The three other parties present in Arabia's Congress are primarily minority-centered parties that focus on key ethnic and religious minorities within Arabia and advancing their rights and interests at the federal level. The third largest party in Arabia is the Islamic Dawa Party, which primarily represents the interests of the Shia Islamic minority based primarily in the state of Iraq. The Association of Arabian Jews, the fourth largest party in the Arabian Congress. primarily represents the Yemeni Jews in the States of North and South Yemen and the Mizrahi Jews in Palestine and Iraq. The fifth, last and smallest party represented in the Arabian Congress is the Babylon Movement, which represents the Syriac Christians in the state of Iraq.