WI Saddam didn't invade Kuwait?

[King Thomas]

Or if he did, he moved out when the UN and US told him to?

[TheGingerninja41]

How about he invades someone else, someone the US doesn't like.

[Claudius]

Originally Posted by TheGingerninja41

How about he invades someone else, someone the US doesn't like.

He did. Iran. Remember?

[Cook]

Iran; the first attempt to grab the oil fields resulted in the longest conventional war in history and bankrupted Iraq.

Turkey was too powerful even if there was something within close proximity to the border for him to try and grab.

Syria has nothing on its Eastern border of any value to equal the cost of an invasion.

Jordan is the same, plus was Iraq’s ally.

Kuwait has the northern oil fields that it shares with Iraq, and is small and vulnerable.

Saudi Arabia; same as Kuwait only on a bigger scale.

So, it was stay at home and slowly pay off the massive war debts and deal with the unpopularity that comes from a depressed economy, or grab the cherry of Kuwait.

[The Kiat]

He wouldn't withdraw; to do so would show weakenss, and only encourage all the peoples he's oppressing to rise up against him.

[Anaxagoras]

The more intersting question to me has always been. . . what if he just seized nothern Kutwait and the islands? That would take a big chunk of Kuwait's oil, as well as the Kuwaiti territory that blocked easy Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf. Kuwait, with its three brigades, wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.

The UN would protest, and there would probably be a Security Council resolution denouncing the attack. But would anyone actually want to fight Iraq for a such small amounts of territory? I doubt it.

[Cook]

Originally Posted by Anaxagoras

The more intersting question to me has always been. . . what if he just seized nothern Kutwait and the islands?

And would the Kuwait and Saudi request defence assistance from the US?
I don’t mean requests to re-take the oil fields; I mean to defend the rest of Kuwait.

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Ummm....

Sadam had some legitimate reasons to invade Kuwait. Not enough to justify the invasion of a sovereign nation, but some.

1) There was a legitimate dispute involving oil fields, which he didn't have with any other neighbour, AFAIK. That should certainly have been resolved short of war, but it was a real dispute.

2) Iraq viewed Kuwait like the PRC views ROC - as a break away province. In Sadam's mind, invading Kuwait WASN'T invading a sovereign nation. Of course, he knew the rest of the world didn't believe that, but he thought he could get away with it.

Neither of those reasons apply to any of his other neighbours.



Now... If he HAD been successful with Kuwait, he might later have tried for some of the nearby Saudi fields....


Sadam wasn't a random mad aggressor. Aggressor, certainly. Mad? maybe. Random? no.

[Dan]

If Iraq could renegotiate it's debt to Kuwait, if neccesary giving up the disputed oil field in return for cancelling the debt then the invasion doesn't happen. Nobody in the rest of the world cares, and the US go on quietly supporting Iraq against Iran, as do Israel(?).

[Monty Burns]

Originally Posted by Claudius

He did. Iran. Remember?

The First Gulf war would provide the easiest PODs. Without the war against Iran, there'S no war debt and hence no need to invade Kuwait.

On the other side, a POD may be found in which the gulf emirates pay more of the war effort against Iran - after all, they strongly supported the war and they had the money. Maybe Saddam, to encourage them, could mention his views on Kuwait being a brekaway province to persuade them to pay. This would again butterfly away war debt.

Finally, if Iraq had won in the sense that some parts of the Iranian oil fields (or maybe only profits from them as reparations) go to Iraq, you'd butterflied away the war debt as well.