Yeah. I'd hate to sound sexist against men, but I bet Saudi Arabia would benefit greatly without as many men around acting the way they do. Not that I'm saying they all do...please don't kill me!!!
So basically, Saudi Arabia gets ahead of the times, adapting to the crisis while many other nations in the area cling to their old ways. This allows a preemptive strike to take them over while they were in their weakened state, allowing them access to a ton of resources (most notably almost all oil in the middle east). A lot of other countries did little to stop this due to having their own issues and still in the process of transitioning out male troops and getting fresh female troops in so couldn't really do much at the time in terms of a full scale invasion even if they wanted to. By the time they were ready to organize an attack, the newly formed empire was massive in both the middle east and Africa, busy building up their infrastructure, including the oasis stuff as mentioned, and had strong defenses put in place. Plus they might have the backing of the...bad guy alliance guys (I forgot their name). However, this Empire would be the main focus of the attacks in the first roleplay.