The Dictatorship of The Northeast Mashriq is a massive, genial nation, renowned for its smutty television, complete lack of prisons, and zero percent divorce rate. The compassionate, cynical, devout population of 4.569 billion Mashriqis are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Beirut. The average income tax rate is 84.2%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The powerhouse Northeast Mashriqian economy, worth 326 trillion Lire a year, is highly specialized and led by the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Arms Manufacturing and Tourism. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 71,526 Lire, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The government is spending millions on renovating the public transportation system, corporate lawyers are joyfully combing through the new tax code for any new loopholes for their clients, government policy is dictated by a major religion, and military equipment stores have a tendency to go up in flames. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. The Northeast Mashriq's national animal is the Goat, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

The Northeast Mashriq is ranked 45,594^th in the world and 1,109^th in the South Pacific for Most Efficient Economies, scoring 93.85 on the Krugman-Greenspan Business Outlook Index.