Challenge: Saddam Hussein as a second Salah-Al-Din

Saddam Hussein was born about 800 years after the birth of Saladin, and was born in the very same town of Trikit, although unlike Saladin, he was an Arab, not Kurdish.

The challenge, should you accept it, is to have Saddam Hussein successfully consolidate an empire however resembles Saladin's empire in shape. You get bonus points if he leaves a positive image in the West as a great statesman. ;)
 
In this day and age you can have unification by conquest, especially not a by non-superpower, so any unification would have to be consent. Fortunately because of Nasser the idea of Arab unity was a recent phenomenon with the UAR fighting Israel. So perhaps during his rise to power Saddam could promote something like ASEAN in the mid east, primarily gaining its unity and strength through non-military institution building. As a result a stable military planning organisation is formed.

Such a union could spend the 80s reacting in a unified manner to the non-military crises in the region, and thus unity gains legitimacy. When the inevtiable military crisis arsies the member states see a unified response as the legitimate one, and look to Saddam as the champion of this unity.

Hows that??
 
Well, generally, given that Saddam was already rose in the pretext of (secular) pan-Arabism, the successful establishment an ASEAN-like organisation in the Middle East that includes a considerable number of Arab countries isn't that far off.
 
There were lots of short-lived nations that were an attempt at a unified Arab nation-state. The aforementioned UAR, United Arab States, Federation of Arab Republics, and a few more. The United Arab Emirates is actually a successful example of such a unification, although obviously much smaller in scale than the others, and it doesn't really have the ultimate goal of total Arab unification.

So, start off with Syria not having a coup, and remaining in the UAR. Eventually, Iraq joins the UAR (planned, historically, but ended up not happening). This is a bit more likely ITTL, since the UAR is still intact, rather than just being Egypt with a different name. So, that's Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Saladin also had western Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Yemen (or at least part of it) is easy; the UAR was in a sort of federation with North Yemen, which dissolved after Syria broke away from the UAR in the early 60s. With no Syria coup, North Yemen stays in, and and eventually the UAS confederation truly integrates.

At this point, you more or less have Saladin's territory, except for South Yemen and Hedjaz. I doubt you could get Hedjaz unless all of Saudi Arabia decides to join the UAR/UAS, which I don't see happening. South Yemen will probably join in eventually, similarly to how it rejoined North Yemen in the late 80s.

Hussein gains power sometime in the early 80s, truly integrates the nation, and possibly leads directly to the annexation of South Yemen (through peaceful means). He's lauded across the UAR as a great leader, and the west loves him for bringing a pro-Western stability to the important region.

A better starting point might be the Federation of Arab Republics, because it was closer to Saddam's rise to power, but I don't think other Arab nations had much of an interest in joining it. Maybe it becomes a bit more successful (similar to the UAR proposal), and so Hussein's Iraq decides to join in. This would give much more credit to Hussein, since he was the one that actually brought Iraq into the federation, and since he's already in power in Iraq, it'd be easier for him to take over in the Federation.
 
Top