DBWI: Iraq, the Arab great power

Well it's now almost 2010, making it eleven years since the first nuclear test by Saddam Hussein's regime. To this day we're still speculating about possible Iraqi-Pakistani cooperation in this. Me personally, I doubt whether Iraq was capable of building nukes all by themselves (especially after Israel blew up Osirak-1) and I can't imagine anyone besides Pakistan who would be interested in selling them building schematics or tech. Don't see the Chinese doing it.

Anyway, what do you think of over two decades of Iraqi dominance since their victory in the Iran-Iraq War? Saddam is still firmly in charge and he's still a murderous tyrant although some speculate that he's keeping Iraq from Balkanizing into independent Kurd, Sunni and Shia states. One thing is for certain: Israel is not happy which is probably why they revealed their nuclear capabilities in 1999 when Saddam tested a 22 kiloton A-bomb, showing off with a 65 kiloton warhead. Iran is pissed as hell too and wants nukes.

We, Israel and Iran see him as a murderous tyrants while Arabs see him as a champion of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism. Maybe some Arabs here who care to comment?

Thoughts?
 
I do not like the man, but at least with him leading the middle east there's less Islamic extremism. Remember when the Saudis were overthrown by that bin Laden guy? He was so bad that when Iraq invaded and overthrew him, people felt relieved and Saddam was revered as a hero. This revived Pan-Arabism, and the rest is history of course, with Iraq stretching all throughout the Arabic peninsula, except for Israel. Remember, the only ones who despised Saddam initially were mainly oil people, but ever since we adopted more nuclear energy under President Udall in the 70s, oil hasn't been important. It was only until he decided to "liberate" the Palestinians in 1991 that we saw him for what he was.

IMO if Iran had won the war it might still have been a theocracy instead of the pro-West Israel-friendly democracy it is today, and the Middle East would still be divided into many countries instead of just consisting of Iraq, Iran, Israel, Egypt, and Turkey. Still, Iraq could be a lot better. I wish it was led by someone like Hussein of Jordan instead of Saddam. But Saddam is still not the ugliest monster there can be, as we saw in Ladinate Arabia.
 
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Ahmed Halabi (not my real name) here via encrypted, proxied post from Damascus. Technically, if I'm caught posting this, I could get shot...though I doubt it.

When Saddam "convinced" Syria to join him, one military dictatorship got replaced with another. The new one's a little softer on general free speech, but is a little harder on sedition, and is a little less corrupt in general. Honestly, it's a mild improvement, even if the odds of dying in a nuclear hellfire have gone up somewhat.
 
The thing that isolated Saddam and made him a pariah in the international community were the forced seziures of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

OOC: If Iraq has grown so huge shouldn't it have a less sectional name?
 

Germaniac

Donor
OCC: In all likelyhood a united Arab states would be called Either something like the United Arab Republic OR Syria actually

I don't personally have a problem with the guy. If Israel has nukes I dont see why another (for the most part) sane arab leader should have a deterent. Hell the Israelis might have opened hellish fire upon the Palestinians in the Arab revolts had the Husseins not threatened Nuclear response
 
The Iraqi economy is a house of cards with the dramatic fall in oil prices this year coupled with the credit crunch. Saddam's going to find it almost impossible to pay off those Chinese loans it needed to fund the 2005 Gulf war, I wonder what his next move will be.
 
The Iraqi economy is a house of cards with the dramatic fall in oil prices this year coupled with the credit crunch. Saddam's going to find it almost impossible to pay off those Chinese loans it needed to fund the 2005 Gulf war, I wonder what his next move will be.


Iraq is the only truly industrialised country in the middle-east, the country that would suffer the less from a collapse of the oil market.
Israel would simply not be a viable economy without western support and the "democratic era" in Iran saw almost no technological/industrial/scientific developpement at all and the country is pretty much in the same situation as Yugoslavia 20 years ago. Saoud Arabia meanwhile, is on the verge of a revolution, despite publicly beheading over 3000 political opponements in this last decade.
 
Well, this is sort of like various other countries' name changes. Iraq may call itself the UAR, but doesn't publicize it (especially to avoid offending the Kurds, Turkmen and Persians under its rule).
Yes Saddam may have been a butcher- hey, he killed off his own brother-in-law after a bad performance in Saddam's biopic "The Long Days"*- but Bin Laden's Saudi Arabia was far worse. It's a good thing that Ambassadors Bush and Glaspie are no longer around.

* In OTL, Saddam's brother-in-law, Hussein Kamil, did indeed star in Saddam's biopic "The Long Days". The movie wasn't that good, but nobody got killed over it, AFAIK. Saddam did kill Kamil after he defected to the west (where he told the world (or at least the UN and CNN) that Iraq had destroyed all its WMD), and then was lured back to Iraq. (Remember both those names. I have at lest two ATLs that involve Kamil (and, let's face it, he'd be a better heir to Saddam than Uday and Qusay) and one involving "The Long Days" (where my changing the face of Hollywood would change the face of Iraq...))
 
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