In honor of the imminent breakout of Gulf War III, what if the U.S. had invaded Syria sometime in the last five years following the Invasion of Iraq to find WMDs/kill Baathists/spread democracy?
what u guys dont undertand is that syria will not be another pushover like iraq, iran will probably aid syria by sending its own soldiers to syria in syrian uniforms, hezbollah will wreak havoc on northern israel (rememeber 06') and insurgents in iraq will get active again, means more fallujahs and suicide bombings, last year has been pretty quiet. also russia has stationed a nuclear fleet in a syrian port, not that they will intervene, but still a pretty big threat, syria has not come under sanctions and embargos like pre-war iraq, they have upgraded their army massively.
Not as bad as you say, but yeah, Syria is much more united behind their government than Iraq ever was. The actual battle with the Syrian military would probably have been more intense than with the Iraqi. And when the occupation begin US would have a third country occupied with significant resistance movements towards the occupation, could even be hard for the Yanks to find any serious people to work with in Syria. Hezbollah might see this as a chance to bully Israel, but afterwards they'd face the problem with surviving without Syrian backing. Bushn would be in deep trouble now, the invasion took more lives than his strategists thought, and with a third country to occupy infested with insurgence, and pretty quickly an active local Al- Qaeda wing, his approval ratings would sink like a huge rock.
Also relations with former allies in the Arab world would be disastrous.
I think this would ruin all chances of American Progress in the Middle East.
I feel that the Syrian Military would hold up a good fight. Yet be taken down without much of a problem.
There would be protests throughout Pakistan and the rest of the Middle East.
Increasing numbers of Militants willing to die in the name of kicking the United States out.
This would also most likely lead Iran to aid Syria with Soldiers and weapons.