AHC: WI -Plan a Better/Different War on Terror

See what you can come up with a better way for America to undertake it's War on Terror in the wake of 9-11 including but not limited to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. What could have been different?
 
Don't invade Iraq and let Saddam Hussein fall as part of the Arab Spring.

This. It is truly staggering how much information that can be gleaned from reading a single book in a university library on "small wars" the Bush administration ignored. The crucial one being; don't extend the area of operations for no good reason...

teg
 
I'd agree that completely foregoing the Iraq War would substantially improve things. Another major improvement might come about by somehow avoiding the second intifada and Ehud Barak remaining as Israeli PM to continue where the Taba Summit left off.
 

bguy

Donor
Don't invade Iraq and let Saddam Hussein fall as part of the Arab Spring.


Why do you assume that Sassam would have fallen as part of the Arab Spring? Even if we assume that the Arab Spring isn't butterflied away entirely by the lack of the Iraq War, Saddam had already shown both the ability and ruthlessness to crush large scale revolts against him (the 1991 Kurd and Shia uprisings where he may have killed over 200,000 people.) His Sunni dominated army would certainly have stayed loyal to him. (The Sunni were on top in Baathist Iraq. They aren't going to support any uprising that would let the Shia majority supplant them from their position of privilege.) And since satellite dishes were banned in Baathist Iraq and the people there did not have access to personal computers and cell phones, the opposition would have a much more difficult time getting organized and spreading the word from city to city. (No al-Jazeera, no Facebook, no Twitter.)

Indeed Time just did an article on why Saddam would have most likely survived the Arab Spring.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2138584,00.html

It seems pretty on point to me, though I think it also missed out on another point that would help Saddam survive, the fact that the Saudis would probably support him since the last thing they are going to want is for the Shia to take over Iraq.

Thus unless the outside world intervenes, what would happen is either Saddam quickly crushes any dissent, or we end up with a large scale sectarian civil war like in Syria only a lot bloodier (since it will quickly become a proxy war for Iran and Saudi Arabia, both of which directly border Iraq and will be able to funnel a lot of weapons and additional fighters to their respective factions.)
 
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