Suppose that Saddam Hussein wanted to remain on USA's good side and just straight up asked the ambassador to Iraq "can I invade Kuwait?" and after getting a "no" just decides to not bother. Would he turn into an effective proxy of America? In OTL USA threw money at a bunch of leaders in Latin America based on a long checklist to make sure they were aligned with American interests. The first item on the list was "Does he hate Castro? If yes, skip the list and give him money."
Saddam Hussein Does Not Invade Kuwait
- Thread starter Alex Zetsu
- Start date
Iraq was a case of the Enemy of my Enemy is my friend. Since Iraq had been at war for a decade with Iran we were supplying Iraq on a case by case basis. I remember teaching a class of West Point cadets a couple days prior to the Invasion and I said. If nothing changes this will be our next fight. Iraq would never have been aligned with USA interests, beyond we give them weapons of war to use against Iran.
Iraq and the US wouldn't be in very good relations anyway, Saddam was expecting some US backlash (he was expecting sanctions) but he didn't expect that the US would intervene militarily. The best way for this to happen is Kuwait forgiving Iraq debt and Saddam not doing anything. Had he done this Iraq would be a "not too friendly dictatorship who follows its own interests" and the US wouldn't care too much, Iraq will never be aligned with US interests.
USA threw money at all sorts of South American leaders with the only qualification being "does he hate Castro"
Well the US does not need to throw money at him for nothing. He earns money to buy things from us by selling us, and everybody else, oil. And we'd led him by certain types of dual use things or even low grade military gear, as long as something doesn't raise the hackles of the Israel lobby or can be couched in DoD studies as threatening Israel's regional "qualitative edge".
So one way or another, depending how flexible your definition of a "yes" is, you are getting a "yes" answer to your OP question, sir.
I don't see the US being all that interested in Saddam or Iraq if he doesn't invade, other than to make sure his army is well supplied and sitting on the border with Iran to keep the latter cowed. Once the Iran-Iraq war was over, the US had pretty much achieved what it wanted... basically, 'both sides lost'...
During a History Channel documentary about Atilla the Hun (back when the History Channel really talked about history), after the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (where Attilla was defeated destroying the Hunnic invincibility belief), it was described as the main reason the Romans didn't finish him off afterwards was because they would probably have needed him as an ally if they fought against the Visigoths (who had fought with the Romans against Attilla). The main reason why the US didn't remove Saddam from power in 1991 was they needed him to counter Iran. Back to the original point, the US would probably ignore Saddam so long as he didn't cause trouble with neighboring countries, unless he wanted to trade oil for food (or weapons to fight Iran).
The main reason we didn't remove Saddam is because the Coalition didn't support it and there was no appetite among the Bush Sr. administration for a permanent occupation of Iraq at the time.
This is a great, under-explored what-if.
A what-if I have been waiting for.
It would change so many things, and so many presumptions about the last 34 years. Or at least it could, without other events knocking things back to convergence.
Thanks for doing it.
A what-if I have been waiting for.
It would change so many things, and so many presumptions about the last 34 years. Or at least it could, without other events knocking things back to convergence.
Thanks for doing it.
The thing to keep in mind is that Iraq arguably needed to absorb Kuwait with its oil wealth because it has no other options. Iraq had not only been ravaged by the war with Iran but plunged deeply into debt to pay for its conflict. The costs of reconstruction and debt repayment were huge, the non-oil sectors of the economy were deeply unproductive not least because of Saddam's misrule, and low world oil prices meant Iraq could not export its way out of its issues.
Taking over Kuwait, on the proximate grounds if he border dispute and the deeper grounds of Iraqi claims, seemed like the least bad solution. He judged, perhaps correctly, that things would be nearly as bad for Iraq if the country just took over the disputed territories, so why not go full in?
If Saddam does not invade Kuwait, what happens next to Iraq? Economic meltdown, perhaps.
Iraq survived without Kuwait on USA's naughty list. I'm sure they can survive without it if the president was delusional enough to think he was an American puppet.
Um, what time frame are you talking about?
If we are talking about 1990, then the only option facing Iraq if not a Kuwaiti adventure would be economic catastrophe. Trying to default on debt would lead a massive collapse in Iraq consumption, cratering Iraqi living standards even as the massive damage caused by the war went unrepaired. This would hit Saddam's legitimacy directly.
Saddam doesn't seem to me like he cares too much about the economy, not invading Kuwait wouldn't solve his issues but invading it made things only worse.
With "quiet Saddam", 1990-1992, you get the following significant changes:
US domestic politics: George H. W. Bush continues to be seen as a competent, serviceable President in foreign policy, a bit soft on Beijing, but uninspiring to his Party, his base, and the general public, and not reaching the great heights of his immediate post-Gulf War popularity, making him appear politically invincible. This leaves US Democratic Party heavy hitters of the time, Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley, George Mitchell, Sam Nunn, plus possibly figures who attempted a run in 1988 but who did not get nominated, Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Paul Simon, perhaps much more willing to contemplate a White House run in 1992 than in OTL, hoping to capitalize on George H.W. Bush's lack of Reaganesque charisma, and generalized voter "time for change" sentiment.
Economically, the lack of an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait should leave oil prices low and stable, with any rising occurring relatively slowly in response to global economic growth and wealth-building raising energy demand. That should be good for George H. W. Bush's economic record. At the same time, not all is bright for the economy under his watch,. Many of the elements of the tech boom are not quite ready for prime time yet. There is a perception, although the economy is not in recession, that Germany and Japan (and the broader Pacific Rim) are outcompeting the USA in leading edge manufacturing and industry. Also, middle management employment had become less secure by the end of the 80s, with formerly unheard of white collar layoffs starting to become a more frequent occurrence.
George H. W. Bush has shown military acumen with the 1989 Panama invasion. Somewhat shaking the "wimp" image. But it is *only* Panama. Before his time is out, fiscal pressures, like OTL will probably lead him to violate the no new taxes pledge, which along with conservatives' general inability to forgive Bush for not literally being Reagan, will probably cause them to lose discipline and have the insurgent Buchanan campaign. So, conservatives will consider Bush a "wimp" ideologically if not internationally.
Geopolitics: the German unification process and the handling of the reform process in the former Warsaw Pact countries should continue apace in 1990 and 1991
The Soviet Union should still be rocked by deteriorating economic conditions, and rising nationalist sentiment in the republics, especially fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Baltic moves to declare independence.
Although the USSR will not have the US prancing about the Persian Gulf, Arabian peninsula and southern Iraq, demolishing Saddam Hussein's largely Soviet equipped arsenal to bruise its ego, the lack of that ego-bruising is not likely to sufficiently change the underlying conditions, reform imperatives, hardliner concerns, and reformer concerns with hardliners in Gorbachev's Soviet Union to prevent the August Coup, its failure, Yeltsin's assertion of Russian Federation separatism, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union over the course of 1991.
The shoe that doesn't drop, the dog that doesn't bark, in the Middle East, will though have an important effect in that region. Without the invasion of Kuwait breaching the "Arabs don't invade Arabs" norm. [of course they subvert and assassinate each other all the time.....but that's different, they don't try to swallow countries whole, or so everyone believed], the Saudis and the other Gulf States, including even Kuwait, will not invite US troop presence on their ground, certainly not in an open-ended, permanent, or public way. That will remain a taboo. The US footprint will remain lighter. In fact the US won't leave footprints. It will send over arms dealers and contractors and agents who will cover their tracks, with the primary US armed presence in the Gulf literally being Naval, and in the Gulf, as in the water itself, or in air patrols over the water, as it had been since the tanker wars of the late 1980s. For permanent basing, Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands would be the main area. 5th Fleet might have a forward office in Bahrain. Airfields would be up to US spec, but US forces would be more 'over the horizon'
Also, Syria will not gain special favor with the US for being part of the Gulf War coalition, and its consolidation of power of Lebanon (outside the Israeli occupied zone), in cahoots with Hizballah, will be slowed down, because Iraq will continue to sponsor and fund and arm the anti-Syrian Lebanese government/army factions of Michel Aoun, with Israeli acquiescence. At the same time the Israelis see Iraqis as a useful counter to the Syrians in Lebanon, their intel are working to thwart advanced Iraqi weapons procurement overseas. It's complicated.
---Whoever the Democrats run 1992, they won't have much to legitimately criticize George H. W. Bush on foreign policy. Things are going well on the Eastern Bloc/Soviet front, it's disintegrating without the world blowing up. Critics can say Bush's policy is over-cautious and reactive, but that's just blather when things are going your way. Old historic complaints about support for right-wing Latin American and Asian dictators won't have any punch because those areas are going through a peak wave of democratization too. What would connect a bit better are criticisms that the Bush Administration is leaving the Chinese Communist Party unaccountable for the Tiananmen Massacre and too cozy with the regime, sending Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor, there too soon after the massacre.
But mainly, the Democratic focus would be that Bush has not attended to overdue domestic reforms that need doing, bringing back jobs, boosting employment, and taming the budget deficit.
Two foreign policy crises emergent in 1992 will look very different from this ATL's perspective compared to OTL, Bosnia/former Yugoslavia, and Somalia...........
Because there is no Persian Gulf War, and no build-up to it, there are no months before the war and after the war where the Administration hears from protestors and critics accusing it of sacrificing "blood for oil" and fighting a war for crass, material, economic motives, with any values or principles-based rationales being a smokescreen.
Therefore, none of these criticisms have the ability to get under members of the Bush Administration's skin, or creep into their brains. This means that when surveying the world scene, no part of their brain or mind feels any imperative to "prove" they are willing to employ US military force for non-cynical, completely altruistic ends.
The lack of the Persian Gulf War also means they do not launch a campaign against a well-armed, mid-sized military, and utterly defeat it, while defying expectations and suffering under 150 killed in action in a very short period of time, with many of those KIA possibly being friendly fire. Prior to Desert Storm, it never occurred to Americans that a war of that significance could be so cheap in friendly casualties, and thus so tempting an option.
Without a Gulf War, the concept of high-tech, low-cost, easy-win wars does not emerge for the US public, and especially diplomatic and government officials and punditocracy. Rather the Vietnam Syndrome, and its echo, the Beirut Syndrome, remain. Even with that Gulf War high, the US of OTL still took several years to get over its fear of forcefully intervening in Yugoslavia. In this ATL, it hardly considers it, and is hardly expected to intervene in Bosnia or Kosovo. It either lets the Serbs operate unopposed, or limits any counteraction to the supply of the Croatians-Bosniaks as counter forces.
Likewise, without that sense that military ops can be casualty-free, or the desire to prove US troops are not just mercenaries protecting Saudi and Kuwaiti oil, the Bush Administration likely feels no obligation nor inclination to back up UN mission in Somalia to distribute famine aid. The risk/reward/incentive calculus is completely different.
Similarly, in Rwanda, in prospect, and in this ATL in retrospect, few even imagine the US might have intervened in the Rwandan genocide. The genocide happens. It is a lamented infamous episode in history and it is regetted "no one" in the "world" prevented it, somebody somewhere may write something about a hypothetical US or international military intervention that could have stopped it in its tracks, but there isn't the same pervasive idea of an omnipotent US or western force being available, unused that could have been easily employed here or in any other humanitarian crisis that emerged by the mid-late 1990s in OTL.
Other geopolitics - Going back to the end of the George H.W. Bush Administration, I think in the wake of Soviet collapse, the Administration would still put forth its 1992 "Defense Planning Guidance", which was the general plan to remain the sole superpower, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/wolf.html, by encouraging would-be enemy superpowers, "don't try to compete, we won't even let you get close to catching up with our lead", and telling our high-wealth, high-tech, high-potential allies, "no need to become an independent great power, we'll take care of your great power, security style needs".
Why would the USA still do this in this ATL? Because it feels good to be the lone superpower, even though it is expensive.
But the *application* of American sole-superpowerdom would play out a bit differently with less US military self-confidence, and frankly, arrogance, produced by a Gulf War victory.
The US may never come as close to striking North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. Now North Korea may be less rushed in advancing its own program. China may be less rushed in its own military modernization without witnessing the US Gulf War victory of 1991 and subsequent 1990s demonstrations of US military power.
Does the US support NATO expansion? Tricky question. On the one hand, without the heightened feeling of military invulnerability from the 1991 victory, the US might take the military obligations and liabilities of being committed to Polish, Central European, Baltic, east Balkan defense more seriously, and balk at them. At the same time, for NATO expansion, it was mainly seen as Article 5 being a self-enforcing political deterrent doing nearly all the work, just "locking in" all the strategic space Moscow conceded in 1989-1992. With that view of it as a political act, with paper commitments enough, it still might have been done.
The US without the Persian Gulf War and without a death feud with Saddam Hussein would still be a world power, and barring other changes would neither become strictly nationalist, unilateralist, nor "isolationist". But its relative focus on the Middle East and expenditures of blood and treasure on the Middle East and South Asia may have been much less. Particularly if a result of the lack of the Gulf War, permanent Saudi Arabia deployments, Iraq sanctions and anti-Saddam containment and maintenance bombings, presentation of targets of convenience to jihadists in Somalia and Yemen resulted in the Bin Laden organization not mounting attacks on US forces or the US mainland.
On the other hand, the Middle East would have retained its capacity to pull in the US other way. The Bin Laden Sunni Jihadists could have fixed their sights on the US, feeling provoked over US support for Israel, and US aid to governments at peace with Israel (like Egypt, maybe in this TL eventually Jordan), even if there were no US "provocations" over Iraq or "desecration"/"occupation" of Arabia.
Or Israeli-Iraqi or Israeli-Iranian war might have occurred, perhaps related to Israeli attempts to quash nuclear programs, and the US might have found it impossible to stay out.
Or the US may have led its own type of intervention against Iraq or Iran, provoked not by an invasion of a neighbor, but by observed progress of a nuclear program, and then be intimately stuck in the region in the aftermath.
US domestic politics: George H. W. Bush continues to be seen as a competent, serviceable President in foreign policy, a bit soft on Beijing, but uninspiring to his Party, his base, and the general public, and not reaching the great heights of his immediate post-Gulf War popularity, making him appear politically invincible. This leaves US Democratic Party heavy hitters of the time, Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley, George Mitchell, Sam Nunn, plus possibly figures who attempted a run in 1988 but who did not get nominated, Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Paul Simon, perhaps much more willing to contemplate a White House run in 1992 than in OTL, hoping to capitalize on George H.W. Bush's lack of Reaganesque charisma, and generalized voter "time for change" sentiment.
Economically, the lack of an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait should leave oil prices low and stable, with any rising occurring relatively slowly in response to global economic growth and wealth-building raising energy demand. That should be good for George H. W. Bush's economic record. At the same time, not all is bright for the economy under his watch,. Many of the elements of the tech boom are not quite ready for prime time yet. There is a perception, although the economy is not in recession, that Germany and Japan (and the broader Pacific Rim) are outcompeting the USA in leading edge manufacturing and industry. Also, middle management employment had become less secure by the end of the 80s, with formerly unheard of white collar layoffs starting to become a more frequent occurrence.
George H. W. Bush has shown military acumen with the 1989 Panama invasion. Somewhat shaking the "wimp" image. But it is *only* Panama. Before his time is out, fiscal pressures, like OTL will probably lead him to violate the no new taxes pledge, which along with conservatives' general inability to forgive Bush for not literally being Reagan, will probably cause them to lose discipline and have the insurgent Buchanan campaign. So, conservatives will consider Bush a "wimp" ideologically if not internationally.
Geopolitics: the German unification process and the handling of the reform process in the former Warsaw Pact countries should continue apace in 1990 and 1991
The Soviet Union should still be rocked by deteriorating economic conditions, and rising nationalist sentiment in the republics, especially fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Baltic moves to declare independence.
Although the USSR will not have the US prancing about the Persian Gulf, Arabian peninsula and southern Iraq, demolishing Saddam Hussein's largely Soviet equipped arsenal to bruise its ego, the lack of that ego-bruising is not likely to sufficiently change the underlying conditions, reform imperatives, hardliner concerns, and reformer concerns with hardliners in Gorbachev's Soviet Union to prevent the August Coup, its failure, Yeltsin's assertion of Russian Federation separatism, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union over the course of 1991.
The shoe that doesn't drop, the dog that doesn't bark, in the Middle East, will though have an important effect in that region. Without the invasion of Kuwait breaching the "Arabs don't invade Arabs" norm. [of course they subvert and assassinate each other all the time.....but that's different, they don't try to swallow countries whole, or so everyone believed], the Saudis and the other Gulf States, including even Kuwait, will not invite US troop presence on their ground, certainly not in an open-ended, permanent, or public way. That will remain a taboo. The US footprint will remain lighter. In fact the US won't leave footprints. It will send over arms dealers and contractors and agents who will cover their tracks, with the primary US armed presence in the Gulf literally being Naval, and in the Gulf, as in the water itself, or in air patrols over the water, as it had been since the tanker wars of the late 1980s. For permanent basing, Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands would be the main area. 5th Fleet might have a forward office in Bahrain. Airfields would be up to US spec, but US forces would be more 'over the horizon'
Also, Syria will not gain special favor with the US for being part of the Gulf War coalition, and its consolidation of power of Lebanon (outside the Israeli occupied zone), in cahoots with Hizballah, will be slowed down, because Iraq will continue to sponsor and fund and arm the anti-Syrian Lebanese government/army factions of Michel Aoun, with Israeli acquiescence. At the same time the Israelis see Iraqis as a useful counter to the Syrians in Lebanon, their intel are working to thwart advanced Iraqi weapons procurement overseas. It's complicated.
---Whoever the Democrats run 1992, they won't have much to legitimately criticize George H. W. Bush on foreign policy. Things are going well on the Eastern Bloc/Soviet front, it's disintegrating without the world blowing up. Critics can say Bush's policy is over-cautious and reactive, but that's just blather when things are going your way. Old historic complaints about support for right-wing Latin American and Asian dictators won't have any punch because those areas are going through a peak wave of democratization too. What would connect a bit better are criticisms that the Bush Administration is leaving the Chinese Communist Party unaccountable for the Tiananmen Massacre and too cozy with the regime, sending Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor, there too soon after the massacre.
But mainly, the Democratic focus would be that Bush has not attended to overdue domestic reforms that need doing, bringing back jobs, boosting employment, and taming the budget deficit.
Two foreign policy crises emergent in 1992 will look very different from this ATL's perspective compared to OTL, Bosnia/former Yugoslavia, and Somalia...........
Because there is no Persian Gulf War, and no build-up to it, there are no months before the war and after the war where the Administration hears from protestors and critics accusing it of sacrificing "blood for oil" and fighting a war for crass, material, economic motives, with any values or principles-based rationales being a smokescreen.
Therefore, none of these criticisms have the ability to get under members of the Bush Administration's skin, or creep into their brains. This means that when surveying the world scene, no part of their brain or mind feels any imperative to "prove" they are willing to employ US military force for non-cynical, completely altruistic ends.
The lack of the Persian Gulf War also means they do not launch a campaign against a well-armed, mid-sized military, and utterly defeat it, while defying expectations and suffering under 150 killed in action in a very short period of time, with many of those KIA possibly being friendly fire. Prior to Desert Storm, it never occurred to Americans that a war of that significance could be so cheap in friendly casualties, and thus so tempting an option.
Without a Gulf War, the concept of high-tech, low-cost, easy-win wars does not emerge for the US public, and especially diplomatic and government officials and punditocracy. Rather the Vietnam Syndrome, and its echo, the Beirut Syndrome, remain. Even with that Gulf War high, the US of OTL still took several years to get over its fear of forcefully intervening in Yugoslavia. In this ATL, it hardly considers it, and is hardly expected to intervene in Bosnia or Kosovo. It either lets the Serbs operate unopposed, or limits any counteraction to the supply of the Croatians-Bosniaks as counter forces.
Likewise, without that sense that military ops can be casualty-free, or the desire to prove US troops are not just mercenaries protecting Saudi and Kuwaiti oil, the Bush Administration likely feels no obligation nor inclination to back up UN mission in Somalia to distribute famine aid. The risk/reward/incentive calculus is completely different.
Similarly, in Rwanda, in prospect, and in this ATL in retrospect, few even imagine the US might have intervened in the Rwandan genocide. The genocide happens. It is a lamented infamous episode in history and it is regetted "no one" in the "world" prevented it, somebody somewhere may write something about a hypothetical US or international military intervention that could have stopped it in its tracks, but there isn't the same pervasive idea of an omnipotent US or western force being available, unused that could have been easily employed here or in any other humanitarian crisis that emerged by the mid-late 1990s in OTL.
Other geopolitics - Going back to the end of the George H.W. Bush Administration, I think in the wake of Soviet collapse, the Administration would still put forth its 1992 "Defense Planning Guidance", which was the general plan to remain the sole superpower, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/wolf.html, by encouraging would-be enemy superpowers, "don't try to compete, we won't even let you get close to catching up with our lead", and telling our high-wealth, high-tech, high-potential allies, "no need to become an independent great power, we'll take care of your great power, security style needs".
Why would the USA still do this in this ATL? Because it feels good to be the lone superpower, even though it is expensive.
KEY POINTS/EXCERPTS:
· The number one objective of U.S. post-Cold War political and military strategy should be preventing the emergence of a rival superpower.
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
"There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the U.S must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
· Another major U.S. objective should be to safeguard U.S. interests and promote American values.
According to the draft document, the U.S. should aim "to address sources of regional conflict and instability in such a way as to promote increasing respect for international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems."
The draft outlines several scenarios in which U.S. interests could be threatened by regional conflict: "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking."
The draft relies on seven scenarios in potential trouble spots to make its argument -- with the primary case studies being Iraq and North Korea.
· If necessary, the United States must be prepared to take unilateral action.
There is no mention in the draft document of taking collective action through the United Nations.
The document states that coalitions "hold considerable promise for promoting collective action," but it also states the U.S. "should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies" formed to deal with a particular crisis and which may not outlive the resolution of the crisis.
The document states that what is most important is "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" or in a crisis that calls for quick response.
But the *application* of American sole-superpowerdom would play out a bit differently with less US military self-confidence, and frankly, arrogance, produced by a Gulf War victory.
The US may never come as close to striking North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. Now North Korea may be less rushed in advancing its own program. China may be less rushed in its own military modernization without witnessing the US Gulf War victory of 1991 and subsequent 1990s demonstrations of US military power.
Does the US support NATO expansion? Tricky question. On the one hand, without the heightened feeling of military invulnerability from the 1991 victory, the US might take the military obligations and liabilities of being committed to Polish, Central European, Baltic, east Balkan defense more seriously, and balk at them. At the same time, for NATO expansion, it was mainly seen as Article 5 being a self-enforcing political deterrent doing nearly all the work, just "locking in" all the strategic space Moscow conceded in 1989-1992. With that view of it as a political act, with paper commitments enough, it still might have been done.
The US without the Persian Gulf War and without a death feud with Saddam Hussein would still be a world power, and barring other changes would neither become strictly nationalist, unilateralist, nor "isolationist". But its relative focus on the Middle East and expenditures of blood and treasure on the Middle East and South Asia may have been much less. Particularly if a result of the lack of the Gulf War, permanent Saudi Arabia deployments, Iraq sanctions and anti-Saddam containment and maintenance bombings, presentation of targets of convenience to jihadists in Somalia and Yemen resulted in the Bin Laden organization not mounting attacks on US forces or the US mainland.
On the other hand, the Middle East would have retained its capacity to pull in the US other way. The Bin Laden Sunni Jihadists could have fixed their sights on the US, feeling provoked over US support for Israel, and US aid to governments at peace with Israel (like Egypt, maybe in this TL eventually Jordan), even if there were no US "provocations" over Iraq or "desecration"/"occupation" of Arabia.
Or Israeli-Iraqi or Israeli-Iranian war might have occurred, perhaps related to Israeli attempts to quash nuclear programs, and the US might have found it impossible to stay out.
Or the US may have led its own type of intervention against Iraq or Iran, provoked not by an invasion of a neighbor, but by observed progress of a nuclear program, and then be intimately stuck in the region in the aftermath.
He actually does. His whole credibility came from him positioning himself as a great Arab leader, the heir to Nasser who would make Iraq a world power. How would it look if his legacy was to leave a wrecked country?
@rfmcdonald - I like your interventions because they are intelligent observations and insightful. But I don't like them, because they stand in the way of some really interesting speculation I worked hard on and wrote about at length.
So knock it off, will ya.
So knock it off, will ya.
This makes me wonder whether Saddam could engineer a war-scare wherein it looks that he might invade Kuwait in order to both drive up oil prices and pressure Kuwait into giving him concessions?
Or would such a thing be thoroughly impractical?
Interesting idea.
Both Iraq *and* Iran needed reconstruction revenue and wanted prices to go up.
It would have been playing with fire, and very dangerous, with a risk of getting out of hand, but maybe Baghdad and Tehran could have cosplayed/pro-wrestling/wwe/kayfabe'd harsh rhetoric against each other, their facilities and tankers with a sequel war with each other to spook markets and get prices to rise without going over the brink and causing actual damage?