How long could Saddam last?

Yun-shuno

Banned
Yes, actually, he really was some dunderhead.

He was a stupid, vain, vicious man who took Stalin for a role model, and whose career was a series of catastrophic misjudgements and errors driven by his own ignorance and narrow-mindedness.

He was never Hitler. He was at best, a third rate Mussolini, bellicose, buffoonish, in love with his own fantasy, and utterly incapable of accomplishment.

He couldn't find his own dick without a flashlight, a GPS and two sychophants.
The man who waged a war with Iran and won, the man who was vetted as an asset by the CIA. The man who in the 70s ruled The Ba'ath party and Iraq from behind the scenes, the man who knew how to use religion and anti-Israel sentiment for his political goals.

Yes what an idiot.
 
The man who waged a war with Iran and won,

He didn't win the war with Iran. Saddam Hussein launched a war with Iran, on the mistaken assumption that it would be easy pickings in its Ayatollah dominated purge phase. He was wrong. After three years of futile attacks, he found himself on the defensive and then spent the next five years desperately fighting for his life and looking for a way out. He was willing to quit. But the Iranians wanted his head on a stick. The subsequent peace treaty conceded pretty much all the disputed issues to Iran, Iraq was saddled with massive debts, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, and nothing to show for it.


the man who was vetted as an asset by the CIA.

You don't actually have to pass an IQ test to be a CIA asset. Quite the opposite.


The man who in the 70s ruled The Ba'ath party and Iraq from behind the scenes,

The Ba'ath Party actually preceded Saddam Hussein by a generation. As did its domination of Iraqi politics. Saddam Hussein created nothing and engineered nothing, except his own rise within the party structure, a combination of luck, ass kissing and being a useful thug. Once he had risen high enough, his contribution to governance was simply to execute or brutalize any possible rival, using the government and party structure that had already been built up.

While in power, Saddam Hussein exhibited no particular grasp of governance or economic theory. Most of the accomplishments of Iraqi society were by his predecessors. He spent oil wealth recklessly, invested it poorly. There's little to indicate that he did Iraq's economy or society any good. He did not 'grow the country.'

Instead, idolizing his hero Stalin, he was infatuated with grandiose dreams of military success to reshape the muslim world, as Stalin had reshaped Europe. Hussein never realized that Stalin was a blunderer who had been caught with his pants down, had vacillated continually, and that his errors and ineptitude cost millions of Soviet lives and very nearly handed the war to Hitler. All he saw was Stalin as a mighty war leader, and he decided to go down the same path, ignoring local politics, ignoring the realities of the postwar era, ignoring everything. He built himself the world's fourth largest army, but the quality of that army was a joke.... an expensive joke, but a joke nevertheless.

the man who knew how to use religion and anti-Israel sentiment for his political goals.

Like commissioning a Koran written with his own blood? Yeah, that was smart, subtle and advanced his goals.

Hussein wanted to be the champion and leader of the Arab world, a world that pretty much didn't want a leader. He jumped into war with Iran, and discovered that no one followed him. He had no diplomatic or political finesse, and could not build a coalition of any kind to save his life. Instead, he tried to capitalize on anti-Israel sentiment by firing rockets at Israel in the gulf war in hopes that the Arab world would rise up... or something. It didn't. Then after, he'd give money to the families of suicide bombers, in hopes of buying some street credibility.... It didn't.

Yes what an idiot.

Yes. An idiot. A brutal, vulgar, dull, self absorbed thug, surrounded by 'yes men' brutally chastised. Not Doctor Evil, not Goldfinger, not Dr. No, or even Max Zorn, not a Bondian supervillain. He was a stunning sub-mediocrity who pretty much bungled everything he touched. By 2001, he was a spent force, popping Viagra like candy with his mistress, zoning out in Cabinet meetings, more interested in writing romance novels, and letting his dictatorship run on a bloody autopilot.
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
He didn't win the war with Iran. Saddam Hussein launched a war with Iran, on the mistaken assumption that it would be easy pickings in its Ayatollah dominated purge phase. He was wrong. After three years of futile attacks, he found himself on the defensive and then spent the next five years desperately fighting for his life and looking for a way out. He was willing to quit. But the Iranians wanted his head on a stick. The subsequent peace treaty conceded pretty much all the disputed issues to Iran, Iraq was saddled with massive debts, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, and nothing to show for it.




You don't actually have to pass an IQ test to be a CIA asset. Quite the opposite.




The Ba'ath Party actually preceded Saddam Hussein by a generation. As did its domination of Iraqi politics. Saddam Hussein created nothing and engineered nothing, except his own rise within the party structure, a combination of luck, ass kissing and being a useful thug. Once he had risen high enough, his contribution to governance was simply to execute or brutalize any possible rival, using the government and party structure that had already been built up.

While in power, Saddam Hussein exhibited no particular grasp of governance or economic theory. Most of the accomplishments of Iraqi society were by his predecessors. He spent oil wealth recklessly, invested it poorly. There's little to indicate that he did Iraq's economy or society any good. He did not 'grow the country.'

Instead, idolizing his hero Stalin, he was infatuated with grandiose dreams of military success to reshape the muslim world, as Stalin had reshaped Europe. Hussein never realized that Stalin was a blunderer who had been caught with his pants down, had vacillated continually, and that his errors and ineptitude cost millions of Soviet lives and very nearly handed the war to Hitler. All he saw was Stalin as a mighty war leader, and he decided to go down the same path, ignoring local politics, ignoring the realities of the postwar era, ignoring everything. He built himself the world's fourth largest army, but the quality of that army was a joke.... an expensive joke, but a joke nevertheless.



Like commissioning a Koran written with his own blood? Yeah, that was smart, subtle and advanced his goals.

Hussein wanted to be the champion and leader of the Arab world, a world that pretty much didn't want a leader. He jumped into war with Iran, and discovered that no one followed him. He had no diplomatic or political finesse, and could not build a coalition of any kind to save his life. Instead, he tried to capitalize on anti-Israel sentiment by firing rockets at Israel in the gulf war in hopes that the Arab world would rise up... or something. It didn't. Then after, he'd give money to the families of suicide bombers, in hopes of buying some street credibility.... It didn't.



Yes. An idiot. A brutal, vulgar, dull, self absorbed thug, surrounded by 'yes men' brutally chastised. Not Doctor Evil, not Goldfinger, not Dr. No, or even Max Zorn, not a Bondian supervillain. He was a stunning sub-mediocrity who pretty much bungled everything he touched. By 2001, he was a spent force, popping Viagra like candy with his mistress, zoning out in Cabinet meetings, more interested in writing romance novels, and letting his dictatorship run on a bloody autopilot.
The man developed Iraqi society and infrastructure, the man was a good rhetorician, the man forced Iran into a stalemate and managed to bloody Khomeini's nose(that's a win in my book) even before he officially ran the country he was the man behind the scenes running it while his mentor in the Ba'ath party was the face of Iraq. To be a CIA asset you have to at least not balk at the kill Saddam didn't. The man who styled himself the 2nd millennium's Nebuchadnezzar and had the potential and the plan to do it.

Was he a good man? Of course not. But he was competent and smart, and had just had bad luck in the brutal ironic game known as international politics.
 
You haven't really done anything but restate positions that I rebutted. What's up with that?

No amount of wishful thinking can change the facts of the Iran/Iraq War into a win for Iraq.

I think that you've fallen into the trap of lionizing monsters and tyrants. It's easy enough to do. These people work hard to build themselves up as something more than mere humans. They invest time and money and murder into polishing their image as statesmen or visionaries, conquerers, warriors, what have you. And even their enemies make the mistake of investing in that image. After all, what's more impressive - to take down an incompetent petty thug? Or to heroically defeat a world spanning threat to peace?

I think though, that this is a mistake. If there is one common thread to the twentieth centuries history of Dictators, it's that they've always, after they're safely gone and can be appraised objectively, turned out to be smaller and more petty and inept than the image they projected, or which was projected on them.

Saddam's just another petty, stupid little nobody.

If you'd like to disagree, fine. But bring some nuance to it. Go out and show me what Saddam actually contributed to the development of Iraq's economy - as opposed to the development work of his predecessors, or the benefits of resources. Explain in detail how the Iran-Iraq war could possibly be considered a win. Make a real case. Do the research, marshall facts and details, build it into an argument.
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
I don't have sources with me, but Saddam had a plan, and quite honestly you dismiss imbue as a petty thug-a thug who ruled a country arguably for 40 some odd years in a volatile time.

His plan was take the oil producing regions become king of the Arab world, and have the French, Russians, and what have you invest and turn the country into a powerhouse. The man repressed dissent and kept his own generals at bay when lesser men would have fallen a lot sooner. Did he topple Khomeini or achieve his territorial goals in the War of 1980-1988 no he did prevent the prevent of Shia revolutions though and kept his own head. While repressing revolts at the same time.

Hell I would even argue he successfully drove a wedge between the Americans and the French/Germans that's takes some skill internationally.

And honestly I think if he had stayed he would have crushed the Arab Spring as you or I step on ants.
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
The man has been dead a decade and I don't think Iraq is really any better for it.

Oh and he didn't kill Christians and have Yazidi women raped that's a plus.
 
I don't have sources with me, but Saddam had a plan,

It was a half baked plan that died out of the starting gate because he misjudged every aspect of the situation, top to bottom.

and quite honestly you dismiss imbue as a petty thug-a thug who ruled a country arguably for 40 some odd years in a volatile time.

He inherited a one party state in which the Baath party already controlled political life, and then ruled based on thuggery. It's not an accomplishment. Papadoc and Babydoc ruled for extended periods of time. So did Idi Amin. So did the Somoza family. So did Marcos. You can't accuse any of them of being rocket scientists.

His plan was take the oil producing regions become king of the Arab world, and have the French, Russians, and what have you invest and turn the country into a powerhouse.

A plan which went completely nowhere, because he misjudged and screwed things up at every single turn. Opportunities came and went, he passed them by. He bungled crises. Started unnecessary fights, both military and political. He achieved nothing, because he was a screw up.

Any asshole can come up with a grandiose plan.

The man repressed dissent and kept his own generals at bay when lesser men would have fallen a lot sooner.

And he executed his own generals when a battle plan failed, which meant that he had an officer corp perpetually unwilling to take any risks or independent action at all, constantly currying favour, and this resulted in losing lots more battles and throwing away lots more lives. It doesn't take brilliance to repress dissent. It just takes murder, lots of it.

Did he topple Khomeini or achieve his territorial goals in the War of 1980-1988 no

He achieved not a single solitary goal, not territorial, not military, not economic, not political, nothing.

he did prevent the prevent of Shia revolutions though

Which wasn't actually ever a large risk. You might as well sit there and tell me that he saved Iraq from an invasion of Man-Eating Giraffes.

and kept his own head.

See: Murder.

While repressing revolts at the same time.

As do most dictators.

Hell I would even argue he successfully drove a wedge between the Americans and the French/Germans that's takes some skill internationally.

Uh huh. This would be same French who keep going 'we're in NATO, we're out of NATO?' Come on, let's be serious.

And honestly I think if he had stayed he would have crushed the Arab Spring as you or I step on ants.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Honestly, do some homework. Make a case.
 
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Saddam was fairly good with ruling by absolute terror and internal Iraqi politics up to the point he started becoming convinced the best way to revolution proof his country was to religiously radicalize the Sunnis. After the war the Sunni community in Iraq dumped him for a younger flasher Jordanian who promised to take the war even more directly to the hearts of the West and the Shia.

Saddam was always horrible at misreading external military and political issues. He sensed Iran was weakened after the revolution which it was and invaded without getting a the Gulf States behind him first. In doing so he bankrupted his country and spilled a river Iraqi of blood for nothing. Then he asks our ambassador of Iraq what the U.S. position is on Kuwait and she demurs and thinks he is talking about saber-ratting for concessions when he is talking about invading and annexing the country.

He invades and annexes the country and lines his whole army up in the desert in a way that sets the Iraqi Armed Forces up like a T to be wacked and wacked it gets. He becomes convinced by trying to bomb and gas Israel their retaliation would bring the whole Arab world into the war against the West which was idiocy. If his Air Force general didn't convince him none of the planes would get though to gas Jerusalem and they were sent and some of the planes got though Baghdad might not have survived.

Saddam gets out of the war barely after Bush called on the people to rise up and ended the war before the US pocked the majority of his Republican Guard and he ends up with a cease fire with stringent conditions and decides to follow the terms only when he feels like it abide by and goes ahead with an idiot revenge plot idea against Bush 41.

April 13, 1993: Fourteen men believed to be working for Saddam Hussein smuggled bombs into Kuwait to assassinate former President Bush by a car bomb during his visit to Kuwait University three months after he had left office.

The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins. Two of the suspects, Wali Abdelhadi Ghazali and Raad Abdel-Amir al-Assadi, retracted their confessions at the trial, claiming that they were coerced. Bush had left office in January 1993. The Iraqi Intelligence Service, particularly Directorate 14, was proved to be behind the plot

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots

After that 70% of Americans supported a second war to topple Saddam himself. Instead Clinton orders a bombing campaign. In the meantime Saddam comes to love being the big bad standing up to America and the Faith movement hits in high gear. In 1998 he sees Clinton being impeached and weakening and believes it his chance to start playing games again with the inspectors.

Bill Clinton says to the public Saddam is reconstituting his WMD program and isn't complying with inspectors and signs the Iraqi Liberation Act with the support of Congress making regime change the policy of the US government.

Bill Clinton: Iraq admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production....

Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits.

It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons....

Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act

Saddam decides at the end of 1998 to call Clinton's bluff and he boots the inspectors. About 60% of the public supports a second war to topple Saddam after booting the inspectors, Clinton mulls it over but decides on a bombing campaign instead and Saddam believes he won and America is weak and won't touch him.

He declares he will no longer follow the No Fly Zone period and US and British planes are fair game to shoot at and Iraq tries.

Then comes September 11th. Gaddafi and Iran are freaked out thinking they are next and play ball with the US with candle light vigils in Iran and Arafat is giving blood for 911 vicitims. The first response Saddam has to the attacks is order his country to publically celebrate the attack. Posters go up in Baghdad.

hussein_poster_911sm.jpg


80% of the US public in November 2001 supports a second war to topple Saddam.

One member of Bush's team Wolfowitz wants to do Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, the rest are worried it would mess up the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Saddam is acting extra plus billigerent in a lot of ways he came to love being enemy number one standing up to America and suddenly Bin Laden has taken his place.

Spring 2002 it's clear that Bin Laden and his aids are now living in Pakistani cities and it's going to be a long shadow war by the CIA and SF to find them. Meanwhile in Iraq Saddam is giving speeches that he has a right to chemical weapons. Over 70% of the US public supports a second war and Europe at this point is ambivalent and Bush is thinking about it, but Blair says to him to stop that he will get the whole UNSC aboard.

Meanwhile Putin gives Bush Russian intelligence that Saddam is planning attacks on the US and hints he may support a UNSC resolution for war (he doesn't), meanwhile US weapons inspectors are still out since 1998 and in their absence the Intel community is convinced Saddam is reconstituting.

Putin: We Told U.S. Saddam Was Planning Attacks

ASTANA, Kazakhstan – Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence after the September 11 attacks that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was preparing attacks in the United States, President Vladimir Putin said Friday. Putin said he couldn't comment on how critical the Russians' information was in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/06/18/putin-told-us-saddam-was-planning-attacks.html

In the meantime Saddam is convinced America will back down again and if not he will win and invites in jihadists and starts having them train with his troops on video as part of defending Iraq. That adds to the certainty in Washington that this guy might support the next major attack on America.

In the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Saddam publicly invited foreign mujahedeen to come to Iraq to resist the invaders. Thousands came and Iraqi officials showed them off to the media as they were trained by Iraqi instructors. Many stayed, eventually joining the insurgency against American troops and their Iraqi allies.

One initiative that eventually fed Saddam veterans into IS came in the mid-1990s when Saddam departed from the stringent secular principles of his ruling Baath party and launched the "Faith Campaign," a state-sponsored drive to Islamize Iraqi society. Saddam's feared security agencies began to tolerate religious piety or even radical views among military personnel, although they kept a close watch on them and saw to it they did not assume command positions.

At the time, the move was seen as a cynical bid to shore up political support among the religious establishment after Iraq's humiliating rout from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War and the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings that followed. "Most of the army and intelligence officers serving with IS are those who showed clear signs of religious militancy during Saddam days," the intelligence chief said. "The Faith Campaign ... encouraged them."

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/...-dominated-ex-officers-saddams-army/31332975/

From Iraq Zarqawi manages one failed attempt to strike Germany and he manages in 2002 to kill a US Marine in Kuwait and the US envoy to Jordan. The US is listening to where he is and gives the intelligence to Jordan who tells Saddam where he is and to get him, but Saddam does nothing.

As Bush tries to push Europe for a UNSC resolution to topple Saddam anti war fever starts gripping Europe and Saddam becomes more convinced without a UNSC resolution America won't topple him. Meanwhile in 2002 new Intel comes in from a lying Iraqi chemist and defector from Germany that Saddam is moving his weapons program around the country via mobile labs.

The French and Russians opposes the US and British UNSC resolution and in the 11th hour before it's clear America is going in Saddam allows the inspectors back in, but Bush already made the decision to invade and what's more is now convinced Saddam is now moving his biochem facilities around the country on trucks that the inspectors will never find.

America invades and finds nothing at first, but a few thousand serin gas rocks and mustard gas shells in the dirt a few years later, but not the biochemical program they were looking for. Saddam couldn't afford a major one because of sanctions. But, jihadists and a radicalized Sunni Arab cadre that we found.

In the end he wanted to be a great conquer and after the West stopped him he wanted to be a great Islamic leader that stood up to America, but unlike the Iranians Saddam never had any sense where America's line in the sand was.
 
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the man forced Iran into a stalemate and managed to bloody Khomeini's nose(that's a win in my book)

That the Iraqis were stalemated, and quite frequently came close to outright defeat, by the Iranians despite possessing overwhelming material superiority is a pretty damning indictment of the Iraqi military and it's capability of making Saddam "king of the Arab world".
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
Saddam was a moron, but the uptick in oil prices and his successful co-option of Sunni fundamentalism into the Republican Guard and paramilitary organizations meant that he was going to definitely last until 2011 at least and at the same time, run massively afoul of Iran. His stance on Israel-Palestine, and his level of support for Hamas, will determine how difficult life is made for him in the run up to 2011, but he could last until then.

However, there is no way that he will have Saudi backing, and only possibly could he have clandestine Jordanian backing, because he was turning Iraq into a fundamentalist rogue state. He would not have been able to crush the Kurds, but he also would not be at risk of losing power unless a move comes from within, possibly by Uday Hussein becoming paranoid that Qusay was going to be the successor, or from Chemical Ali or one of the other generals getting sick of him and turning on him.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
I suspect that Bush Jr. is less than entirely truthful in his memoirs.
There definitely from other sources both within and outside the administration is a recognition that 9/11 caused a behavioral change in Bush that drastically increased his personal support for unilateralism and a Churchillian polarized world view. I don't doubt that Bush wanted Saddam gone at some point pre 9/11, but I doubt that he had the will to actively depose him. His campaign on a humble foreign policy in 2000 was apparently genuine, which is why he failed to get any neoconservative support in the primaries, most of which went to John McCain.
 
I have no doubt that he shit his pants and was fully traumatized.

Having said that, by all appearances the actual policy goals of the Bush administration did not change at all.

What changed was an ability to implement his agenda. Prior to 9/11, Bush was well on his way to failure, with a mediocre vacillating administration. The Bush administration had barely managed to pass a budget, had pissed away control of Congress with a ham handed effort to punish Jim Jeffords, and was going nowhere fast.

After 9/11, a traumatized nation lined up behind the Administration which pretty much had a free hand to pursue whatever it wanted to.

Bush had no profound personal change of heart. His personal "It's my way of F--- you" approach to unilateralism was clearly on display well before his presidency. 9/11 didn't stiffen his spine. It merely made it possible for him to implement.

As to the genuineness of a 'humble' foreign policy, McCain was a long time proponent of the John Wayne school of international relations. So he had the hard core sewn up. Bush could not have gone there without appearing as a pale copy of McCain on foreign policy issues. A 'humble' foreign policy, whatever that meant, simply existed to stake out a distinction from McCain.

I do find amusing the argument that his 'humble' foreign policy was 'apparently genuine', however. Thanks for the smile.

But let's not have pretensions about any aspect of the Bush administration. Between Karl Rove and Dick Cheney there wasn't enough integrity to fill a mosquito's condom.
 
Saddam was a moron,

Indeed.

but the uptick in oil prices

Irrelevant. The Iraq regime was under sanctions, and the 'Oil for Food' program was in place. Even with kickbacks and corruption, Hussein's regime had relatively little control over its own revnues.

and his successful co-option of Sunni fundamentalism into the Republican Guard and paramilitary organizations

This seems a post-facto rationalisation. A projection of later events and developments backwards. While it's true that Saddam Hussein's regime was opportunistic in its approach, hence the late era boom in mosque construction, there's very little evidence outside of crazy right wing circles that Hussein was catering to Islamic fundamentalism. His regime was predominantly secular and highly mistrustful of religious fundamentalism. Lip service might be paid. But the impulse was to stamp it out. Fundamentalists had the awkward habit of following the Koran rather than the Ba'ath Doctrine. Hussein's hostility to fundamentalism was persistent, even after the fall of his regime he and his remnants were still unwilling to cooperate.

It's telling that the Bush administration, in the run up to the war, when it was embracing every ludicrous rumour, or simply making shit up, couldn't sell that particular bill of goods. Look, if it was too incredible and ridiculous for an administration which was pounding yellowcake and showing the United Nations its cartoons of mobile chemical weapons labs back then.... it surely ain't going to fly now.

We didn't see a rise in fundamentalism in the Sunni community until after the fall, when the purging of the Ba'ath and the destruction of the Iraqi state meant that Sunni's had no where to turn.

His stance on Israel-Palestine, and his level of support for Hamas, will determine how difficult life is made for him in the run up to 2011, but he could last until then.

No effect at all.

However, there is no way that he will have Saudi backing, and only possibly could he have clandestine Jordanian backing, because he was turning Iraq into a fundamentalist rogue state.

There's so much wrong with that statement it's hard to know where to begin. But I'll just confine myself to saying that Saudi Arabia's chief geopolitical rival in the sanctions era was Iran not Iraq. Iraq was a spent force. However, Saudi Arabia was very concerned with Iran, particularly because there was a large Shiite population in its Persian gulf territories, which also happened to be oil producing territories. Saudi Arabia was very leery of Shiite fundamentalism and Iranian influence there and saw this as its major security threat. So any sign that the Shiite Fundamentalists/Iranians were taking over in Iraq was going to trigger a strong response. The Saudi's would definitely have intervened to prop Saddam up, most likely with cash.

Given the influence of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, any sign that the Hussein regime was becoming sympathetic to fundamentalism would have been a net positive in terms of Saudi support. The notion that Hussein was 'turning Iraq into a fundamentalist rogue state' is kind of ridiculous.

As for Jordan, it was simply never going to be a player.
 
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