AHC: No Iraq War and the results
- Thread starter Ming777
- Start date
Paul V McNutt
Banned
The Afganistan war gets more troops, resources and public attention. George W Bush does better in 2004.
Blair wins a third successive 100 seat majority in 2005, Gordon Brown is still Prime Minister.
Could Iraq actually help, I've heard Iraqi intelligence had at least tried to get agents into Al Qaeda but don't know if it went anywhere.
More follow up troops and Iraqi police/regular army do not disband. They switch their loyalty to a new, pro Allied Iraqi government estalished soon after the invasion. The insurgency either does not happen or, if it does is more limited and snuffed out quickly within a few months. Iran, fearing invasion, seeks an accomodation with the West and moderates gain strength winning the elections in 2009, Iran does not support the Taliban in Afghanistan and the insurgents there seek peace talks hemselves.
With that size of majority it's possible that Blair might just stay on...
Snake Featherston
Banned
The problem is to avoid this means avoiding the No-Fly Zones, which in turn means avoiding the 1991 war, which in turn means having Saddam win a shorter war with Iran in the 1980s. And the butterflies from an actual Iraqi victory in that war will have results on a much faster scale than simply avoiding the endless US-Iraqi War since 1991.
Snake Featherston
Banned
I'd say probably no, once Abu Mazzen takes over the PLO. He was never fond of the alliance between the PLO and Iraq in the first place.
Dubya used the War on Terror as an excuse to finish what his Daddy should have done, oust an unfriendly leader from a key oil producing nation that was strategically positioned amongst America's enemies and weak enough that they could be over run quickly with minimal losses. You'd need no Dubya, a stronger Iraq, less Us enemies in the middle east, no Iraqi oil or else a much, much tougher time for NATO in Afghanistan for it not to happen. All the same, in the US it might not have led to the election of Obama. In Britain Blair certainly would have remained much more popular and would be a key statesman now. Brown never would have won an election after the financial crisis though. Be interesting to see what the arab spring would have been like with Saddam still in charge.
I think if no Iraq war, but still a war in Afghanistan, I think we might have been able to find bin Laden a lot sooner. Also, Bush might have done better in re-electionand his approval ratings would have been higher.
I think that also we would send military more to Libya and the uprising countries now, instead of having them strung in Iraq, and perhaps the troops would not have been so spread thin around the world.
I think that also we would send military more to Libya and the uprising countries now, instead of having them strung in Iraq, and perhaps the troops would not have been so spread thin around the world.
Wouldn't the financial crisis have been more manageable without the debts incurred by the Iraq conflict?
Honestly, that wouldn't do it. The Iraq Liberation Act, which called for regime change, passed congress with overwhelming suppoprt in 1998. The 2000 GOP platform called for full implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act and removal of Saddam Hussein. You need, at the very least, to reduce the influance of the PNAC on the GOP as a whole. Doing away with the Iraq Liberation Act is also pretty key, but requires some serious changes in the way the post-GWI events unfold. As Snake suggested, doing away with the no fly zones is likely the best way to do that, but that probably requires pre-GWI changes (I'm not absolutely convinced that doing away with GWI is altogether necessarily required).
Snake Featherston
Banned
Because Clinton engaged in bombing raids in Iraq at least three times, while maintaining No Fly Zones through bombing would qualify as a war by most legal definitions of what is and is not a war. With Gore's approval, I might add.
But bombing Iraq wasn't the same as invading it and staying there for 8 years...
At any rate, to address the OP: Afghanistan gets more troops, Taliban largely destroyed around '07 or '08, less severe economic downturn, more support on War on Terror, and Europe doesn't get the "pingko kommie basterds always verking against 'Murrican inturrrest" reputation - definitely butterflies away Freedom Fries.
Marc A