Impact of a surviving Hussein regime on the Arab World

So if the United States hadn't invaded Iraq (either due to a Gore presidency or just different decision makers within the Bush administration), how would the Middle East look different with Saddam Hussein still in charge? I know people always talk about Iraq as a counter-balance to Iran. Would Iran still attempt a nuclear program with a stronger (i.e. not occupied) Iraq on its western border? I assume this would butterfly the Arab spring. How else would the last 12 years have been different?
 
If Gore is President in 2001, there would be no policy changes to bring about the recession and global economic down turn years later. Without the downturn in the global economy, there is no Arab Spring pure and simple. This means no multiple instance of civil war across the region in the 2010s.

The 9/11 attacks still occur and the US still invades Afghanistan, but there is no reason to go into Iraq. Iraq was never engaged in building weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War ended. Gore may order strikes like Clinton did though to enforce the UN sanctions left upon it every few years. The US may be able to eventually negotiate an end to this eventually anyway.

The US finishes its work up in Afghanistan by defeating most of Al-Qaeda there or in Pakistan. There is little else it does in the region except keep several thousand troops long term on the Afghan border to prevent the resurgence of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Life is much more peaceful and prosperous under President Gore all over the world.

Saddam will die eventually leaving control to one of his two sons. Eventually it's largely believed that rivals of theirs in the Iraqi military will eventually stage a cou and Iraq will probably be ruled by a junta of military leaders. They may be more open to negotiating the end of the WMD controversy in Iraq and easing UN sanctions, especially if the fight for power between military leaders creates some sort of civil strife or war. Iran probably tries to play the various military leaders of Iraq against one another to gain influence.
 
If Gore is President in 2001, there would be no policy changes to bring about the recession and global economic down turn years later. Without the downturn in the global economy, there is no Arab Spring pure and simple. This means no multiple instance of civil war across the region in the 2010s.

The 9/11 attacks still occur and the US still invades Afghanistan, but there is no reason to go into Iraq. Iraq was never engaged in building weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War ended. Gore may order strikes like Clinton did though to enforce the UN sanctions left upon it every few years. The US may be able to eventually negotiate an end to this eventually anyway.

The US finishes its work up in Afghanistan by defeating most of Al-Qaeda there or in Pakistan. There is little else it does in the region except keep several thousand troops long term on the Afghan border to prevent the resurgence of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Life is much more peaceful and prosperous under President Gore all over the world.

Saddam will die eventually leaving control to one of his two sons. Eventually it's largely believed that rivals of theirs in the Iraqi military will eventually stage a cou and Iraq will probably be ruled by a junta of military leaders. They may be more open to negotiating the end of the WMD controversy in Iraq and easing UN sanctions, especially if the fight for power between military leaders creates some sort of civil strife or war. Iran probably tries to play the various military leaders of Iraq against one another to gain influence.

You are imagining paradise on earth, aren't you?
 
If Gore is President in 2001, there would be no policy changes to bring about the recession and global economic down turn years later. Without the downturn in the global economy, there is no Arab Spring pure and simple. This means no multiple instance of civil war across the region in the 2010s.

The 9/11 attacks still occur and the US still invades Afghanistan, but there is no reason to go into Iraq. Iraq was never engaged in building weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War ended. Gore may order strikes like Clinton did though to enforce the UN sanctions left upon it every few years. The US may be able to eventually negotiate an end to this eventually anyway.

The US finishes its work up in Afghanistan by defeating most of Al-Qaeda there or in Pakistan. There is little else it does in the region except keep several thousand troops long term on the Afghan border to prevent the resurgence of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Life is much more peaceful and prosperous under President Gore all over the world.

Saddam will die eventually leaving control to one of his two sons. Eventually it's largely believed that rivals of theirs in the Iraqi military will eventually stage a cou and Iraq will probably be ruled by a junta of military leaders. They may be more open to negotiating the end of the WMD controversy in Iraq and easing UN sanctions, especially if the fight for power between military leaders creates some sort of civil strife or war. Iran probably tries to play the various military leaders of Iraq against one another to gain influence.

The Arab Spring was inevitably, it was going to occur in some form or another at some point and time whether America invaded Iraq or not.
 
^No it wasn't. It took the global downturn in the economy to affect food and fuel prices to spark it. With Gore as President, there may not be the same NSA spying or WikiLeaks issue without the Iraq invasion either.
 
^No it wasn't. It took the global downturn in the economy to affect food and fuel prices to spark it. With Gore as President, there may not be the same NSA spying or WikiLeaks issue without the Iraq invasion either.

No, it was inevitable, the Arab regimes were inherently unstable and the people were getting heavily restless as it was; they were bound to collapse eventually.
 
^Not in a spontaneous series of revolutions. Maybe one at a time over a series of many years and decades, but not within such a short amount of time. Without the global economic downturn and NSA spying there is no catalyst for something like the Arab Spring.
 
May be veering off thread here, but I too think the Arab Spring was inevitable. It may not have happened in 2010, but its likelihood would increase every following year. It's main reasons might have been food prices, or Wikileaks' release of the State Department's embassy cables, but its main facilitators were Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, along with the IPhone... And those will only get more popular over time. So in the end it took just one suicide of a desperate youth in Morocco, shared on the new social media, out of reach of the state censorship, to engulf the whole country in protests and then spread out to the neighbors. Sadam being around or the US invasion not happening would not change that.

This being said, if Saddam would still be in power, I doubt that the Arab Spring would ever go more westwards then Egypt. Saddam and Assad, even if not direct working together, would between them suppress every insurgency just by keeping the respective rebels from going across the border to regroup. So we would probably only get a North-African spring.
No insurgency in Iraq and Syria and no porous border between them might however also butterfly away ISIS.
 
May be veering off thread here, but I too think the Arab Spring was inevitable. It may not have happened in 2010, but its likelihood would increase every following year. It's main reasons might have been food prices, or Wikileaks' release of the State Department's embassy cables, but its main facilitators were Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, along with the IPhone... And those will only get more popular over time. So in the end it took just one suicide of a desperate youth in Morocco, shared on the new social media, out of reach of the state censorship, to engulf the whole country in protests and then spread out to the neighbors. Sadam being around or the US invasion not happening would not change that.

This being said, if Saddam would still be in power, I doubt that the Arab Spring would ever go more westwards then Egypt. Saddam and Assad, even if not direct working together, would between them suppress every insurgency just by keeping the respective rebels from going across the border to regroup. So we would probably only get a North-African spring.
No insurgency in Iraq and Syria and no porous border between them might however also butterfly away ISIS.

It is going to end more like twin civil wars with possible sectarian factions. Sunni rebels against Assad and Shia rebels against Hussein.
 
It is going to end more like twin civil wars with possible sectarian factions. Sunni rebels against Assad and Shia rebels against Hussein.

That makes for some interesting thought: Normally no leader wants a civil war just across its borders for fear there could be spillover. So Saddam and Assad both had an interest in helping the other guy keep an iron grip on it's countries wannabe insurgents.

But what if instead they would actually help the rebels from the other country. I'm not talking about moving troops in or such, just leaving your borders open for the other guy's rebels so they can withdraw and regroup in relative safety and possibly providing some arms, training or just food... For Saddam, this might be a way to covertly stick it to Iran, who would now need to commit more resources into shoring up its ally Assad. It would also help unite its own country behind him once again. For Assad, he might recon that supporting Iraqi 'Freedom fighters' might get him on the list of good guys again. Furthermore, it might be not at all that dangerous as Saddam's war machine would still be weakened by the international sanctions and his army had already lost two wars in a row
 
That makes for some interesting thought: Normally no leader wants a civil war just across its borders for fear there could be spillover. So Saddam and Assad both had an interest in helping the other guy keep an iron grip on it's countries wannabe insurgents.

But what if instead they would actually help the rebels from the other country. I'm not talking about moving troops in or such, just leaving your borders open for the other guy's rebels so they can withdraw and regroup in relative safety and possibly providing some arms, training or just food... For Saddam, this might be a way to covertly stick it to Iran, who would now need to commit more resources into shoring up its ally Assad. It would also help unite its own country behind him once again. For Assad, he might recon that supporting Iraqi 'Freedom fighters' might get him on the list of good guys again. Furthermore, it might be not at all that dangerous as Saddam's war machine would still be weakened by the international sanctions and his army had already lost two wars in a row

Ba'athist Syria and Ba'athist Iraq absolutely hated each other; so it wouldn't surprise me if the latter happened.
 

Nagel

Banned
Shia will rebel with iranian help. Probably in 2004))).
Qasem Soleimani would destroy Tikrit ten years earlier, and without western air cover.
Remnants of baathists and islamic sunni mujahidis will also create isis 10 years earlier , but in this Tl their main enemy would be "safavids" and "flame worshippers", not the "jewish crusaders".
Probably western countries will support them, as "democrates" and "true representatives of of opressed iraqi people" like in OTl Usa supports Syrian islamists with weapons and training and money.


It would be wery funny world where Ibrahim al Bagdadi is shaking hands with mr McCain.
 
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