Bush I goes onto Baghdad, quagmire follows?

[matashowski]

Basically I'm wondering if we might have ended up with a similar situation as the OTL 2003 Iraq war, just a decade earlier. Of course this is pre-9/11, so the circumstances are entirely different. I was like a week old, so i'm not too sure what the international reaction might have been. I'm assuming that some of the same mistakes would be made (ignorming weapons caches, disbanding the army, debaathification, so on), but perhaps not. IIRC, a lot of the same people worked for each administration.

Also, the thought has crossed my mind that we might not stop at Iraq, but the 90's were such a different time, who knows. I can't tell if the whole itching for a fight with Iran has been around forever or is more recent. I doubt Americans, fresh out of the cold war, would want to go trapsing around the Middle East. I just read this interesting book (An end to Evil) written by neocons in 2004 that basically advocated knocking down any government when its in our interest. One of my favorite lines was "oh, if only every situation were as easy as Syria."

 

[Polandc4]

I remember there was quite a few rebellions going on at the time. So if the US stood up instead of folding, there may have been support on the ground.

 

[alexcoppo]

In 1991 the americans where flatly told that if they exceeded by just a grain of sand the UN mandate all arab countries would pull out of the thing. Try fighting a war in Iraq without logistic support in Saudi Arabia/Egypt/gulf countries .

 

[Emperor Norton I]

There was an uprising after the Gulf war. The US could have backed it and gotten Saddam out. We did not.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

If bush goes to Iraq, Quagmire follows.

Is that a Family Guy reference?

 

[Hades]

Is that a Family Guy reference?

Giggity.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Giggity.

Instead of Debbie Does Dallas - Quagmire does Isis.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Sorry, I couldn't resist those.

To be serious I have no idea if the result would be better or at least less bad than what really happened.

 

[spkaca]

In 1991 the americans where flatly told that if they exceeded by just a grain of sand the UN mandate all arab countries would pull out of the thing. Try fighting a war in Iraq without logistic support in Saudi Arabia/Egypt/gulf countries .

The UN Mandate was 'all necessary means to restore peace and stability' which is not quite a blank cheque but could certainly stretch a bit. It wouldn't need to stretch all the way to Baghdad, though. In my view, 'on to Baghdad' is a red herring. The thing that might have made a difference would have been a blanket no-fly zone for the whole of Iraq, including a ban on helicopters. I remember long ago reading Norman Schwarzkopf's autobiography where he mentions that the Iraqi ceasefire negotiators were very insistent that the ceasefire agreement should allow them to use helicopters, allegedly for transport/ liaison purposes, but this of course gave them licence to use gunships against the rebels. Schwarzkopf claims to have been deceived on this issue; arguably it was a serious error on the US negotiator side.
A blanket no-fly zone might have given the rebels a fighting chance. (Though I suspect more likely is a 'Syria 2015' scenario in which the regime retreats to its core areas but is unable to subdue the rest of the country.) Hard to say what the response of the Arab Coalition members would have been if the US/ UK had implemented that, it is always possible that at least some of them were bluffing about this red line of theirs.
An issue I couldn't assess would be what the response would have been if the US implemented a blanket no-fly zone, the Saudis et al. at first agreed and then got cold feet (i.e. if it appeared the rebels were actually about to win) and withdrew their support/ approval. In such a scenario, there are two linked questions - would the US want to continue its policy of enforcing a blanket no-fly zone, and could they do so using only carrier-based air operating from the Gulf? The carriers themselves, of course, would need logistic support, but if they could maintain a patrol over Iraq, even at a lower optempo, could that buy enough time for the rebels to take Baghdad?
My reading at he policy level is that Washington was ambivalent about whether a rebel victory was desirable, but policy and events were sufficiently in flux that they might feel impelled to let that/ make that happen. But at the time, it was hard to think beyond the liberation of Kuwait, which is why policy drifted and Washington placed its top priority on maintaining the diplomatic unity of the Coalition. For a time it looked as though the rebels might win unassisted, which was another argument against any assistance. There are a lot of imponderables.

 

[zoomar]

A full invasion of Iraq in 1991 with the intent of toppling Saddam, would have been far worse for the US and its interests than the 2003 invasion. The UN mandate was solely to liberate Kuwait. During the last days of the conflict, the US interpreted this as carte blanche to continue attacking retreating Iraqi forces in the theater after Kuwait had been liberated and even that raised some eyebrows (despite its obvious military wisdom). Had the US moved on to Bagdad, the coalition would have crumbled and the US seen as completely duplicitous.

As noted by spkaca, there were numerous (mostly Kurdish and Shia) rebellions against the Iraqi regime, and for a time many people thought they might succeed. Also, since some of the key members in the 1991 coalition were Arab states such as Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, the US needed to be extremely attuned to their sensibilities. These nations wanted a stable and predictable Iraq, not one fragmented by ethnic rebellion. Given what has generally transpired in the Arab world in the 2000's, the US should perhaps have sought a rapprochement with Saddam's regime (having taught it a lesson in 1991), rather than treat the regime as an international pariah.

 

[British Republic]

What if the Americans agreed with the Egyptians and Saudis (and maybe the Russians as well) to replace Saddam with someone else who would try and keep the country together under some form (In other words a less idiotic version of Saddam) and establish an Iraq-Wide No-Fly Zone and launch a bombing campaign to support the Kurdish and Shia rebellions?

I would like the UN to consider helping people change their own government to even use the words "against international law".

 

[zoomar]

What if the Americans agreed with the Egyptians and Saudis (and maybe the Russians as well) to replace Saddam with someone else who would try and keep the country together under some form (In other words a less idiotic version of Saddam) and establish an Iraq-Wide No-Fly Zone and launch a bombing campaign to support the Kurdish and Shia rebellions?

I would like the UN to consider helping people change their own government to even use the words "against international law".

There are a lot of unlikely "what ifs" there, but I am most troubled by your last sentence. So you think the UN should have the right to intervene in internal rebellions and change the governments of member states? That would be the death knell of the UN as a meaningful "international" organization.

 

[British Republic]

There are a lot of unlikely "what ifs" there, but I am most troubled by your last sentence. So you think the UN should have the right to intervene in internal rebellions and change the governments of member states? That would be the death knell of the UN as a meaningful "international" organization.

No I am suggesting that the UN should take a step back in certain circumstances. That is if there is a rebellion against someone who violates the human rights of millions of people in a country without a democratic system there is no good reason to complain about it to the Americans.

One might ask the question, where has the UN been in relation to the Kurds?

 

[ivanotter]

If Bush snr had moved beyond the UN mandate, I do believe the alliance would have fallen apart.

If US in isolation should have stormed on to Baghdad, the Saddam regime probably would have collapsed as we saw it in 2003, but then the real question arises: .. and now what?

Dissolving Iraq and handing out pieces of Iraq to the neighbours is not a great idea.

Finding a compromise candidate within Iraq would be rather hopeless as Saddam had made sure there would be nobody to rival him.

And then we have Iran waiting in the shadow.

A rather fantastic idea, but not so out of the question in 1990/1: invite Bin Laden into the mix of policing Iraq thereafter. A-Q was very much in the formative years and maybe something could have been prevented?

Ivan

 

[Hades]

What about the Resolution being worded differently, giving the US some leeway in taking down Saddam?

 

[yourworstnightmare]

There were many good reasons not to topple Saddam in 1991. One was of course that the US allies in the Middle East didn't wanted him toppled (at that point). Other reasons were worries about Iranian influence and Turkish worries about the Kurds.

 

[Just a Rube]

A few other concerns:
-American popular support for the continued war would have had a much shorter half-life. The Gulf War was opposed by many prominent Democrats (indeed, its success was one reason so many supported the 2003 invasion, for fear of being seen to be wrong again), and without the memory of 9/11 to rally support, it will be harder to sustain; consider Somalia a few years later for an example).
-Saddam actually did have fairly extensive WMDs in 1991, unlike 2003. In particular if order breaks down, this could get messy
-Counterinsurgencies are always messy.

Some wildcards:
-Sunni Islamism was a less powerful militant force; Al-Qaeda in particular was much less prominent in international opinion. On the other hand, Shiite militarism is more prominent only a few years after the end of the Iran-Iraq War.
-Technological change (especially the Internet). This cuts both ways; on the one hand the US has fewer toys to use in their counterinsurgency, on the other hand the insurgents would have harder times recruiting and fundraising without the web.
-The Kurds do not have the experience of running their own quasi-independent territory for a decade.

 

[jmc247]

Honestly, the war going on 48 hours longer would have wiped out the vast majority of the Republican Guard and a real NFZ that didn't let Saddam use attack helicopters would have ended his regime and Iraqi society was yet to be radicalized and divided the way it was by 2003 we didn't have to go to Baghdad in order to achieve a much better outcome for the world.

Then when the Gulf States see Saddam can't put down the revolt they would back the UN coming in and supported a transitional government.

The Gulf War has the very faulty image as the picture perfect way a war should be waged, however in alot of ways the conflict became like WW1. A war that was ended too soon with an even worse peace (well in this case cease fire) then the brain trust at Versailles came up with which in the case of Iraq guaranteed continued military conflict with Iraq and the countries continued radicalization.

 

[British Republic]

There were many good reasons not to topple Saddam in 1991. One was of course that the US allies in the Middle East didn't wanted him toppled (at that point). Other reasons were worries about Iranian influence and Turkish worries about the Kurds.

If that was the case when why did the Americans and their Arab allies fight against them? They clearly thought Saddam was acting against their various interests and that he needed to be stopped. Likewise they could have appointed another Sunni Dictator to run Iraq in place of Saddam who was less difficult to deal with.