Confederate States of America

Ok - working with the "CSA: the Movie" setting as best as I can...

[link]

The CSA was on fairly good terms with the Saudi monarchy, as another bunch of highly religious and bigoted slave-holders: indeed, the CSA took up something of a position as defender of the Saudi Kingdom (and it's sweet, sweet, crude) from Arab Nationalists and Communists. Although many Americans were hardly happy about an alliance with a bunch of hell-bound heathens, realpolitik and the general ally drought kept such views out of political bonds.

However, the successful ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait by CSA-backed Saudi forces led to an expansion of the Soviet presence in Iraq, which then provided a great excuse for the expansion of CSA forces in Arabia...which was not liked by many Arabs. Oil prices went up, and the Saudis began making suggestions as to the CSA perhaps reducing the number of troops stationed in Arabia.

With the discovery of a terrorist plot by an almost entirely Saudi group, an excuse was handy: although the terrorists were actually operating out of theocratic Afghanistan, and the initial mobilization was put into action under the pretext of extracting the terrorists from Afganistan, once a massive increase in forces in the Gulf had been deployed, it proved easy to "discover" direct ties between Saudi citizens and the terrorists, and to make demands as to full cooperation with CSA investigators that no Arab government could stand the humiliation of.

Unfortunately, although the late-90s collapse of the Soviet economy, the loss of their European empire and the ongoing economic crisis had left the Red superpower a near basket-case, there was such a thing as just too much to tolerate...

It is now 2003. Afghanistan remains a mess, and a distinct lack of cooperation re overflights on the part of Industan has required the "liberation" of part of Baluchistan. On the positive side, the CSA has obtained its main objective in occupying the Saudi oil fields. However, both the Soviets and the Anglo-French are now mobilizing forces of their own and issuing increasingly stiff diplomatic notes. The CSA government is betting that they are bluffing: the Soviets and Europeans are hardly going to start Great War III over the Saudis, right?

PS - yes, no Saddam Hussein: I just couldn't stretch suspension of disbelief quite that far...