How long does Saddams regime last without the Iraq war?

I think that sanctions would continue to escalate as the commodity boom went on, and tamper much of the economic growth that could have happened. Saddam's repressive apparatus was much better tested, much more effective, and much more ideologically committed (remember, he purged the Republican Guard in the mid to late 90s as his fundamentalism took hold), and could have crushed any Shiite revolt.

I personally think that Saddam was in his last decade anyways in 2003. He I think probably dies before the Arab Spring, and Qusay takes over, and probably carries out a major purge of Saddam's old comrades who were still around (Chemical Ali, al-Douri, al-Tikriti, and some others), while keeping around most of the younger high ups who he had a chance to cultivate.

Qusay would probably be a bit like the younger Assad in that he would present a more mild face to the outside world, but would be utterly ruthless in terms of domestic opposition.
 
Iraq the country which shared a border with NATO was "further away"?

I don't think the Turks would've done anything or allowed the US deploy there to invade Iraq. In the OTL in '03 the US had to use Kuwait. Libya was within easy range of NATO in Italy.
 

Ak-84

Banned
I don't think the Turks would've done anything or allowed the US deploy there to invade Iraq. In the OTL in '03 the US had to use Kuwait. Libya was within easy range of NATO in Italy.
They refused ground troops for a war widely seen as unnecessary. There was general support for Gaddaffi’s removal. It turned to shit later, like everything else the US has touched in the past 15 years, but in spring 2011, there was a lot of general support.
 
Not going to happen under Saddam, it would be genuinely massively unpopular. Iraq may be majority Shia, but they are also majority Arab, and Saddam and his predecessors spend decades reminding Iraqi Arabs that they were Arabs instead of Iranians, who got compared to flies and Jews. He also built up a big mythology over "victory" over Iran. And of course, Saddam's generation hated the Iranians for nationalistic reasons. Qusay could try but it undermines much of the national mythology holding the entire thing together.

Not saying it'd be easy, but if the US is still gunning for both countries (almost certain), stranger bedfellows have been found in history.
 
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