Iran invades Iraq, 1991

In a whole lot of discussions regarding the US invasion of Iraq, it's often mentioned how the balance of power in the region was screwed up when they took out Saddam, thus leaving Iran in a great position. Similarly, in discussions about Bush I not supporting the '91 uprisings against Saddam, it's postulated that they feared Iran could get too strong in the absence of the Iraqi dictator.

There was however a moment when the Iranians could very well have made a move, namely actively invading in support of the Anti-Saddam uprisings that occured right after Desert Storm. Sure, they were beat up from years of fighting him, but then, he was beat up much, much more.

The uprising:
intifada4.GIF


A key factor in Saddam's succes OTL over the rebels was his use of helicopters and armor. With Iran entering the fray though, that advantage is gone, as Saddam had lost most of his jets and was barred from using any he still had due to coalition-imposed no-fly-zones. Therefor, the Iranians should enjoy total air supremacy.

So, Iran strikes a deal with the Kurds as per OTL and sends in troops both in the south and the north, digging in before the Iraqi Army takes over those areas.

How screwed is Saddam? Does he try and launch a chemical weapons attack? Might we see the Iranian capturing Baghdad?
 
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Saddam unleashes the VX again and blankets the south. The world turns a blind eye to it even more so then him putting down epic numbers of Shia civilians OTL.

The Sunni Arab Gulf States help Saddam in this as they other then Kuwait quickly get over their anger at him.

The Iranians were too smart to do this. They let Saddam kill off the most pro-American and compitent Shia in the process of letting Saddam put down the 91 uprising the U.S. called for.
 
Awesome thread dude.

This would be diplomatic/military/economic suicide for Iran though.

What's the historical precedence? Take a look at the overnight coalition patched together in this whole Houthi-Yemen mess. The exact same would happen in 1991 but much worse.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, maybe even Egypt would commit forces to help save Saddam's Sunni friendly regime from collapsing and that's not even counting the endless supply of arms and munitions the western coalition forces would commit to the war effort. Pakistani backed Mujahadeen fighters would certainly stage asymmetrical attacks from Iran's rear.

You will most like see a Status Quo peace agreement once everything said done and huge economic sanctions throw on to Iran for good measure. Or an all out collapse of the Iranian State either through a moderate revolution or revolutionary guard coup, both seeking peace.
 
Won't happen. Iran had just spent eight years bleeding itself white to keep Iraq out and was forced into using bloody human wave attacks to pull it off. They don't have the manpower, the logistical capacity, or anything else needed to even try not to mention the US would probably intervene to keep the Iranians out. Even if the US didn't the Gulf States would suddenly discover how much they actually like Saddam Hussein compared to Tehran and flood Iraq with arms and money.
 
Won't happen. Iran had just spent eight years bleeding itself white to keep Iraq out and was forced into using bloody human wave attacks to pull it off. They don't have the manpower, the logistical capacity, or anything else needed to even try not to mention the US would probably intervene to keep the Iranians out. Even if the US didn't the Gulf States would suddenly discover how much they actually like Saddam Hussein compared to Tehran and flood Iraq with arms and money.

Saddam still has enough chemical weapons to depopulate southern Iraq quite severely already.

Obviously later he destroyed many, but not all of them and hid at least 6K nerve gas rockets we found in 2003-2007 and probably had a few times as many still buried we never found.

Basically he is going to drench southern Iraq in nerve gas while the world looks the other way and the Gulf States help him. The question is does he bring the war into Iran once the Shia are slaughtered and the Iranian Army is driven out.
 
Meanwhile, in the north, peshmerga welcome Iranian soldiers who help them push the Iraqi army and Sunni irregulars back onto the flatlands away from Mosul and Tikrit. Since Kurdistan is too to fly from Kuwait, WALLIES quietly ignore skirmishes in Kurdistan.
 
A few things:

1. In no way are Sunni Arab States - let alone the US-led coalition - going to send troops to fight for Saddam hours after the Americans stopped blowing up his armoured divisions. And I think there would be talks of impeachment if Bush actively supplied Saddam with weapons or money.

2. The Iraqi army, apart from a handful of overstreched Republican Guard divisions, was most likely in a state of dissaray following episodes like the Highway of Death. They are seriously outnumbered, outgunned, out-everything'ed by the Iranians at this point in time

3. I cannot stress this enough - the Iranians would have TOTAL AIR SUPREMACY going against zero opposition in the air.

4. Iran had started its own chemical weapons program in the 80s and used them themselves in the closing stages of the war. I haven't found any concrete numbers, but apparently they had gathered quite a lot themselves.

5. Given the situation, we can most certainly expect a war of maneuver in the south, as Saddam's 300k troops can't really dig in anywhere south of the Karbala-Kut line, lest they be encircled. However, given Saddam, this is most likely where they will try to make their stand, making them liable to be defeated in detail.

With no airforce and the situation on the ground extremely fluid (meaning anything more than small-scale use by local units is out of the question) the only way Saddam will be able to deploy his WMD arsenal will be in a strategic sense against cities. While this will most likely kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, it won't do that much to Iranian military units, as most of these should be in the field.

If the front stabilizes into trench warfare around Karbala and Kut, it's already an Iranian victory

Given 3 and 4, it will be the Iranians who would be in the best position to use chemical weapons in a tactical fashion, which should give them an edge when it comes to actually fighting the enemy (instead of just blanketing city centres with gas using inaccurate missiles)


However, a per standard procedure, opposition to ideas I bring up in my threads is nigh-unanimous, so maybe I should just let this die in the depths of AH.com's abyss.
 
A few things:

1. In no way are Sunni Arab States - let alone the US-led coalition - going to send troops to fight for Saddam hours after the Americans stopped blowing up his armoured divisions. And I think there would be talks of impeachment if Bush actively supplied Saddam with weapons or money.

And there's even less of a chance they'll let the Shi'a dominated Islamic Republic of Iran pull Iraq into its orbit. Ever since the fall of the Shah there's been a long-burning cold war between the Saudis and the Iranians as best shown by the generous support extended to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War. It is unlikely any Sunni state will send troops but arms, money, and possibly even unofficial volunteers are very likely. They didn't like Saddam but they liked Tehran a whole lot less.

2. The Iraqi army, apart from a handful of overstreched Republican Guard divisions, was most likely in a state of dissaray following episodes like the Highway of Death. They are seriously outnumbered, outgunned, out-everything'ed by the Iranians at this point in time

And the Iranians are still recovering from the brutally crippling losses of eight years of grinding trench warfare with an army that was just starting to tool itself back up. The IRI was in no position, logistically or militarily, to launch any kind of major campaigns during the Gulf War period. The biggest problem they would have is most of their kit is in shambles thanks to years of war and a total lack of US-made spare parts for their Shah-era US kit. The Ayatollahs are simply not crazy enough to send waves of Iranians to their deaths in a war that will provoke a reaction from the rest of the Arab World.

3. I cannot stress this enough - the Iranians would have TOTAL AIR SUPREMACY going against zero opposition in the air.

Which would be the sort of air supremacy one gets from having a handful of planes against your opponent's zero. Iran's air forces were heavily damaged not just by the war but, again, by the lack of highly specialized US-made parts necessary to keep their aircraft flying. What says the most about the Iranian air forces in this period is that by 1984 the main use for F-14 interceptors, which were some pretty ferociously effective air superiority craft, was as ersatz AWACS because they didn't have the parts to keep them armed and effective for aerial combat.

And that air superiority is going to vanish like snow in Samarra the moment Iraq gets some decent planes and parts shipped in c/o the Gulf Arab states.

4. Iran had started its own chemical weapons program in the 80s and used them themselves in the closing stages of the war. I haven't found any concrete numbers, but apparently they had gathered quite a lot themselves.

And Saddam had enough to saturate the Shi'a south with little difficulty and was able to force Iran to the negotiating in table by 1988 with threats of gassing Tehran. Whatever chemical weapons they had it was clearly not enough to call his bluff. He also has chemical weapons, including massive quantities of nerve gases, that were not used in war with the US and are more than able to ruin the lives of Iranian soldiers trying to cross the border.

Iran was in no position to be launching any kind of war in 1991 or 1992 thanks to the damage done by the Iran-Iraq War. On top of that there was no will or desire among the Iranian ruling elites who were quite aware of the toll the conflict had taken on the population. The only way they would go on the offensive is if there was some ideological imperative to do so but such an ideological dictate does not exist. Iran's revolution never showed any interest in spreading their government beyond their borders outside of standing as the protector of the world's Shi'a. That lack of ideological justification coupled with some very sharp practical, military, and logistical reasons arguing strongly against say Iran would never launch another war with Iraq even assuming Iraq would stand alone.

Which it will not. The Gulf Arab monarchies would flood Iraq with money and arms, the US would turn a blind eye out of fears of Iranian expansionism, and I wouldn't be surprised if large numbers of Salafi militants start migrating to the region as "volunteers" to stop what they would see as the Shi'a hordes bent on destroying the Sunni world.
 
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