Middle East War without Iraq War

The Arab Spring spreads to Iraq. Iraq and Syria support rebels in each other's countries, leading to war. Iran enters the war on Syria's side. Syria and Iran are winning the war. Out of desperation, Iraq restarts its nuclear weapons program. Syria and Iran follow suit. The Israelis don't want any of them to get nuclear weapons. Israel offers to enter the war on Iraq's side if Iraq abandons its nuclear weapons program. Iraq agrees. Israel enters the war on Iraq's side and turns the tide. Iraq and Israel are victorious.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Dunno. Its like asking about Europe sans WW1.
Saddam is probably dead by now of natural causes. No Arab spring as the pent up anger never reaches boiling point over the local regimes love of the uS and A. Lack of an Iraq war also has knck on effects on so many things, like the financial crises, the US Debt and deficit, the retreat of (or refusal to come) of business in the ME.
 
Dunno. Its like asking about Europe sans WW1.
Saddam is probably dead by now of natural causes. No Arab spring as the pent up anger never reaches boiling point over the local regimes love of the uS and A. Lack of an Iraq war also has knck on effects on so many things, like the financial crises, the US Debt and deficit, the retreat of (or refusal to come) of business in the ME.
Saddam would only have been 73 when the Arab Spring began in 2010 just 4 years after he was executed. So it's likely he would've been alive. I don't see any reason why the Arab Spring wouldn't have occurred. The Arab Spring started as a protest against oppression by the regimes in the Arab world. That oppression still would've been present without the Iraq War.
 
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CaliGuy

Banned
Israel offers to enter the war on Iraq's side if Iraq abandons its nuclear weapons program. Iraq agrees. Israel enters the war on Iraq's side and turns the tide. Iraq and Israel are victorious.
Yes, because Israel totally forgot about Saddam Hussein launching chemical weapons at it back in 1990-1991! (sarcasm)
 
Does the US not invade Iraq because the federal government decides to leave well enough alone?

Do they go back and still try to mess things up in the Middle East later, or really leave well enough alone?

If they leave well enough alone, the Middle East remains a place with lots of oil and dictatorships, and politically and culturally something of a backwater. At least until the Saudi succession crisis. Otherwise, you get back to OTL eventually.
 
Yes, because Israel totally forgot about Saddam Hussein launching chemical weapons at it back in 1990-1991! (sarcasm)
First of all, Iraq didn't launch chemical weapons at Israel in 1990-91. It launched SCUD missiles with high explosive warheads at it during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but not chemical warheads. Second of all, why would the Israelis care about what Iraq did during the Persian Gulf War at that point?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
First of all, Iraq didn't launch chemical weapons at Israel in 1990-91. It launched SCUD missiles with high explosive warheads at it during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but not chemical warheads.

Thanks for the clarification.

Second of all, why would the Israelis care about what Iraq did during the Persian Gulf War at that point?

For one, because Iraq never apologized for this and the same Iraqi government that did this is still in power.
 
The Arab Spring spreads to Iraq. Iraq and Syria support rebels in each other's countries, leading to war. Iran enters the war on Syria's side. Syria and Iran are winning the war. Out of desperation, Iraq restarts its nuclear weapons program. Syria and Iran follow suit. The Israelis don't want any of them to get nuclear weapons. Israel offers to enter the war on Iraq's side if Iraq abandons its nuclear weapons program. Iraq agrees. Israel enters the war on Iraq's side and turns the tide. Iraq and Israel are victorious.

It's not clear that the Arab Spring would even happen without the invasion of Iraq. This both revealed the ultimate weakness of the Arab strongmen and caused them to clamp down in order to strengthen their positions internally. Some of the causes still exist anyway (lots of Arab countries still have high unemployment, high levels of poverty, oppressive police states, etc), but the revolutions may be smaller, fail to spread, or even fail to happen. The Arab Spring is far from inevitable.

There's also no reason that Syria and Iraq would undermine each other. While relations were hardly warm (Iraq was still fairly bitter about Syria joining the Gulf War), the two governments had similar political alignments and Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad are said to have had a good personal relationship. If it did come to it, though, I guess Iran and Syria would team up against Iraq.

The problem is...Israel joining Iraq is a non-starter. An open alliance would see a coup or mass desertions or betrayals. Even a tacit wink-wink-nudge-nudge system of informal cooperation would probably see Hussein losing all of his credibility with Iraqi civilians and most of his own military. Iraq would never agree to such a thing especially on the condition of no more nukes - Osirak is not so easily forgotten.

Open cooperation also wouldn't fly in Israel, where the action would see an immediate confidence vote in the Knesset, which the Prime Minister would almost certainly lose. The Mossad might be happy to help (though how? Channeling money and intelligence?, but even trying to get special forces from the military proper would be a hard sell.

I don't like to stifle creativity, but the premise of the original post is ASB from start to finish.

Now, if we're just talking mideast war post 2003 without the invasion of Iraq, that's a completely different kettle of fish.
 
It's not clear that the Arab Spring would even happen without the invasion of Iraq. This both revealed the ultimate weakness of the Arab strongmen and caused them to clamp down in order to strengthen their positions internally. Some of the causes still exist anyway (lots of Arab countries still have high unemployment, high levels of poverty, oppressive police states, etc), but the revolutions may be smaller, fail to spread, or even fail to happen. The Arab Spring is far from inevitable.

There's also no reason that Syria and Iraq would undermine each other. While relations were hardly warm (Iraq was still fairly bitter about Syria joining the Gulf War), the two governments had similar political alignments and Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad are said to have had a good personal relationship. If it did come to it, though, I guess Iran and Syria would team up against Iraq.

The problem is...Israel joining Iraq is a non-starter. An open alliance would see a coup or mass desertions or betrayals. Even a tacit wink-wink-nudge-nudge system of informal cooperation would probably see Hussein losing all of his credibility with Iraqi civilians and most of his own military. Iraq would never agree to such a thing especially on the condition of no more nukes - Osirak is not so easily forgotten.

Open cooperation also wouldn't fly in Israel, where the action would see an immediate confidence vote in the Knesset, which the Prime Minister would almost certainly lose. The Mossad might be happy to help (though how? Channeling money and intelligence?, but even trying to get special forces from the military proper would be a hard sell.

I don't like to stifle creativity, but the premise of the original post is ASB from start to finish.

Now, if we're just talking mideast war post 2003 without the invasion of Iraq, that's a completely different kettle of fish.
The invasion of Iraq had absolutely no bearing on any dictator in any other country. It didn't even expose the weakness of Saddam. It wasn't like his own people overthrew him. We attacked Iraq and defeated it in a war. As for relations between Iraq and Syria, on July 28, 1979, Saddam claimed there was a plot against him conducted in league with a foreign power, later identified as Syria. He suspended diplomatic relations with Syria and never restored them. I don't know where you heard Saddam and Assad were said to have had a good personal relationship. But, they actually hated each other. Check out this 1990 article in the Seattle Times: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900818&slug=1088412
Israel joining Iraq is a total starter. Think about it from both of their points of view. Iraq's losing the war. It desperately needs to turn the tide. Its nuclear weapons program offers no guarantees. Syria and Iran could get nukes too, maybe even before Iraq does and Iraq might not be able to build them before they force it to surrender. Israel is the most powerful country in the region. For Israel, any one of the combatants getting nukes would be a nightmare, let alone all of them. So, what's it going to do? This alliance would make perfect sense under these circumstances.
 
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For one, because Iraq never apologized for this and the same Iraqi government that did this is still in power.
So what? Israel's facing a nightmare scenario of Iran, Iraq and Syria potentially all getting nukes. Do you really think the Israelis are going to give a shit that Iraq didn't apologize for launching missiles at Israel during the Persian Gulf War?
 
The invasion of Iraq had absolutely no bearing on any dictator in any other country. It didn't even expose the weakness of Saddam. It wasn't like his own people overthrew him. We attacked Iraq and defeated it in a war.

The fact that Saddam was overthrown from without rather than within doesn't matter. Like many strongman dictators, he cultivated an air of invincibility; once he was overthrown, it sort of broke the illusion that the Arab dictators were invincible. Don't forget that even after Saddam got bitch-slapped in the first Gulf War, and was rebuffed in the Iran-Iraq War, he still remained in power. The second Gulf War showed that the dictatorships were not invulnerable. I'm not saying it's the only cause of the Arab Spring (as I didn't before), but I think it's definitely a part of it.

As for relations between Iraq and Syria, on July 28, 1979, Saddam claimed there was a plot against him conducted in league with a foreign power, later identified as Syria. He suspended diplomatic relations with Syria and never restored them. I don't know where you heard Saddam and Assad were said to have had a good personal relationship. But, they actually hated each other. Check out this 1990 article in the Seattle Times: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900818&slug=1088412

1979 is 30 years before 2010; 1990 is 20 years before it. Relations evolve. Saddam and Bashar al-Assad were friendly; their countries were not friendly, but not really enemies; for example, after Bashar al-Assad took power, Saddam stopped his accusations that Syria was smuggling soldiers across the border in order to destabilize and overthrow Iraq (Syria was probably never doing this, but Saddam's stopping the accusations indicates a new leaf in the relationship).

Israel joining Iraq is a total starter. Think about it from both of their points of view. Iraq's losing the war. It desperately needs to turn the tide. Its nuclear weapons program offers no guarantees. Syria and Iran could get nukes too, maybe even before Iraq does and Iraq might not be able to build them before they force it to surrender. Israel is the most powerful country in the region. For Israel, any one of the combatants getting nukes would be a nightmare, let alone all of them. So, what's it going to do? This alliance would make perfect sense under these circumstances.

You're completely ignoring the internal political situations here. In Egypt, Anwar Sadat was assassinated shortly after signing the peace treaty with Israel. Saddam Hussein spent a lot of time and effort vilifying Israel (probably mostly to keep his people concentrated on an external enemy, distracting them from his own brutality). In fact, Saddam Hussein was probably the Arab leader who most strongly supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization in words and to some extent in deeds. For him to ally with Israel would be like North Korea declaring that they were going to ally with the United States against China. Maybe it makes sense in a very limited set of circumstances, but it's completely impossible.

As for nukes, Israel would have A. not trust Iraq to keep their word and B. believe in their own ability to stop Iraq from developing nukes regardless. After all, they did so OTL. Also in Syria. They also did a good job against Iran, though politics rendered the problem moot (without American interference in Israel's anti-Iran campaign, it's hard to say which way it would have gone; personally, I tend to believe that Israel would even have launched an airstrike against Iran if necessary, risking a proxy war with Syria and Hezbollah, though this is less of a concern if Syria is bogged down in a war against Iraq).
 
The fact that Saddam was overthrown from without rather than within doesn't matter. Like many strongman dictators, he cultivated an air of invincibility; once he was overthrown, it sort of broke the illusion that the Arab dictators were invincible. Don't forget that even after Saddam got bitch-slapped in the first Gulf War, and was rebuffed in the Iran-Iraq War, he still remained in power. The second Gulf War showed that the dictatorships were not invulnerable. I'm not saying it's the only cause of the Arab Spring (as I didn't before), but I think it's definitely a part of it.


1979 is 30 years before 2010; 1990 is 20 years before it. Relations evolve. Saddam and Bashar al-Assad were friendly; their countries were not friendly, but not really enemies; for example, after Bashar al-Assad took power, Saddam stopped his accusations that Syria was smuggling soldiers across the border in order to destabilize and overthrow Iraq (Syria was probably never doing this, but Saddam's stopping the accusations indicates a new leaf in the relationship).



You're completely ignoring the internal political situations here. In Egypt, Anwar Sadat was assassinated shortly after signing the peace treaty with Israel. Saddam Hussein spent a lot of time and effort vilifying Israel (probably mostly to keep his people concentrated on an external enemy, distracting them from his own brutality). In fact, Saddam Hussein was probably the Arab leader who most strongly supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization in words and to some extent in deeds. For him to ally with Israel would be like North Korea declaring that they were going to ally with the United States against China. Maybe it makes sense in a very limited set of circumstances, but it's completely impossible.

As for nukes, Israel would have A. not trust Iraq to keep their word and B. believe in their own ability to stop Iraq from developing nukes regardless. After all, they did so OTL. Also in Syria. They also did a good job against Iran, though politics rendered the problem moot (without American interference in Israel's anti-Iran campaign, it's hard to say which way it would have gone; personally, I tend to believe that Israel would even have launched an airstrike against Iran if necessary, risking a proxy war with Syria and Hezbollah, though this is less of a concern if Syria is bogged down in a war against Iraq).
By your line of thinking, World War II should've showed that dictatorships were not invulnerable. Who would think they were? Did anyone really think Saddam would've been able to stop us from deposing him in 1991? Saddam didn't restore diplomatic relations with Syria when Bashar Al Assad became president. Sadat was assassinated over 2 1/2 years after signing the peace treaty with Israel. Who says anyone in Iraq would oppose an alliance with Israel under the circumstances, let alone be willing to risk their lives by trying to assassinate Saddam? Old issues go out the window in the face of new threats. Look what's going on today between Saudi Arabia and Israel. They've gotten closer because they both see Iran as a threat. Iraq is losing the war. At this point, neither politics nor the past matter. Turning the tide is the only thing that matters to Saddam. He's going to do whatever he has to to do that. As for the Israelis, they've got not 1, not 2, but 3 countries they really don't want getting nuclear weapons working on them all at once. How are they going to stop all of them from getting them? Besides, if Iraq reneged on the deal, they could always bomb its nuclear enrichment facility like they did in '81.
 
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Greenville

Banned
The U.S. is able to defeat most members of Al-Qaeda including Osama Bin Laden. There's limited of such a group rising in the Arab Spring.
 
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