DBWI: What if the United States invaded Iraq in 2003

Everyone over the age of 10 likely remembers the craze near war phase in late 2002 and 2003 where tensions between Iraq and the United States reached a near tipping point; but things ultimately calmed down. What would have happened if the US had gone ahead with the planned invasion; what would have been the ramifications on the world if the War on Terror's scope expanded and if Saddam was removed power eleven years before his OTL death in 2014?
 
Considering how Afghanistan has been such a problem as is, I can't imagine it going over very well. The Taliban would probably be stronger in Afghanistan, instead of being mostly now Pakistani and a border issue. I also imagine the 2006 midterms would have been a lot more painful than OTL for the GOP.

Given the current economic state, I imagine the national debt would be even worse than it is, as hard as that is to imagine.

Bush also dodged a bullet when the Arab Spring resulted in nothing but Pre-gulf war stockpiles being found. So much for the Intel community...
 
Probably second Vietnam. Even in OTL Iraq became pretty messy place after Saddam's death. Syria and Iran hardly just look the invasion. And was in Iraq even anyone who could has been leader of Iraq whose USA could accept? I don't see invasion ending well. Bush probably would lose election '04.

And invasion would be surely economic disaster. Even in OTL military get much money and invasion and occupation would need even more.
 
Probably second Vietnam. Even in OTL Iraq became pretty messy place after Saddam's death. Syria and Iran hardly just look the invasion. And was in Iraq even anyone who could has been leader of Iraq whose USA could accept? I don't see invasion ending well. Bush probably would lose election '04.

And invasion would be surely economic disaster. Even in OTL military get much money and invasion and occupation would need even more.

I heard about some guy named Maliki that was apart of the Iraqi National Congress (US backed opposition force) that could have been made leader of Iraq in the event of an invasion, but I don't know how likely of a candidate he could be.

As for it being a messy affair - it probably would be, but it would be as Iraq is in it's current Civil War? I mean Iraq only got as bad as it is now after Saddam basically went senile from age and his rule increasingly got more and more oppressive with each year.
 
I think it would have gone well. Saddam's rule after his senility kicked in only worsened tensions, leading to the situation that we are in now. Without that Iraq would probably be a more peaceful place. In addition, the military would be able to put significant effort into rebuilding Iraq, which wouldn't have as big an Islamic insurgency as Afghanistan (where Islamists had ruled for years). Plus, remember that militants are using Saddam-era chemical weapons, which are horribly degraded by now, as improvised bombs against civilian areas. The US finding these weapons would have clearly prevented that.

OOC: Taking the position of a center-right interventionist. As for the chemical weapons as IEDs, terrorists have actually done that on a small scale IOTL.
 
I think it would have gone well. Saddam's rule after his senility kicked in only worsened tensions, leading to the situation that we are in now. Without that Iraq would probably be a more peaceful place. In addition, the military would be able to put significant effort into rebuilding Iraq, which wouldn't have as big an Islamic insurgency as Afghanistan (where Islamists had ruled for years). Plus, remember that militants are using Saddam-era chemical weapons, which are horribly degraded by now, as improvised bombs against civilian areas. The US finding these weapons would have clearly prevented that.

OOC: Taking the position of a center-right interventionist. As for the chemical weapons as IEDs, terrorists have actually done that on a small scale IOTL.

I'm inclined to agree with this assessment - taking out Saddam before his senility really kicked in would have prevented eleven more years of animosity from being fostered between Sunnis and Shiites as a direct result of Saddam's increasingly more oppressive rule as he grew more and more detached from reality; thus preventing the present insurgency of larger Islamist and smaller Ba'athist groups that consumes the country and the current situation we are in.

That's not to say that any invasion wouldn't have been messy, but Iraq would have been able to be rebuilt and the international community could have helped repair the bridges burnt by Saddam and the Ba'athists. Or it could have gone horribly wrong; but I don't think the more pessimistic ideas of al-Qaeda consuming the country in a 2003 invasion scenario are likely.
 
Everyone over the age of 10 likely remembers the craze near war phase in late 2002 and 2003 where tensions between Iraq and the United States reached a near tipping point; but things ultimately calmed down. What would have happened if the US had gone ahead with the planned invasion; what would have been the ramifications on the world if the War on Terror's scope expanded and if Saddam was removed power eleven years before his OTL death in 2014?

I'm afraid it's just one more thing that President Obama would have on his plate, on top of the Taliban and the Ash-Sham group in Syria; Remember, the Bush administration fucked up a lot over in Afghanistan, and it took Obama 5 years to turn things around over there-how would Iraq be any different?
 
I think that this probably would have heightened tensions between Arab Governments notably Baathist Syria and even worse for Iran which would be also at a near boiling point I mean George Bush made Iran part of his axis of evil. I think that at some point that someone like Benjamin Netanyahu may have come to power in Israel.
 
I'm afraid it's just one more thing that President Obama would have on his plate, on top of the Taliban and the Ash-Sham group in Syria; Remember, the Bush administration fucked up a lot over in Afghanistan, and it took Obama 5 years to turn things around over there-how would Iraq be any different?

Probably, the Bush administration and the Pentagon fucked Afghanistan up royally; so it's possible Iraq could have ended up the same way.
 
Why would President Gore want to attack Iraq and hand the region over to Iran?

Take 2: President Hillaty Clinton had such a hard time cleaning up the mess Bush made in Afghanistan. Her inability to fix the previous administration's mistakes were a primary factor in Romney's victory in 2012.

If Bush had also invaded Iraq who knows where America would be?
 
Without America's favorable moral position, Obama may not have gotten the Nobel for brokering the Ukraine peace
 
Probably, the Bush administration and the Pentagon fucked Afghanistan up royally; so it's possible Iraq could have ended up the same way.

Maintaining the no-fly zones through the Iraqi Civil War has certainly been a controversial policy, but I'd imagine that the de-facto breakaway of Shi'te majority southern regions and northern Kurd areas would have happened eventually anyway, but with much more bloodshed. Then again this policy has certainly contributed to the way the current Iraqi junta and Assad are cooperating with one another and Moscow. Putin would have never been able to benefit from the Arab Spring the way he did in a world where a territorially intact Iraq would be firmly in Washington's sphere of influence.
 
Top