Saddam Hussein is killed in 1959: What happens to Iraq?

In 1959, Saddam and others of the Ba'ath Party tried, and failed to kill Abd al-Karim Qasim, and the rest is history as we know it as Saddam fled to Egypt.

But what if Saddam Hussein had been killed in 1959? What would be the fate of Iraq, and the Middle East in the years to come without Saddam?
 
I discussed this in soc.history.what-if some years ago:

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In 1959 the Ba'ath party attempted to assassinate Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassem. The attempt failed, and one of the would-be assassins, the 22-year old Saddam Hussein was shot in the leg in a botched ambush. He fled to Cairo and did not return to Iraq until after the 1963 coup that killed Qassem.

Suppose Saddam had been killed in the 1959 attempt. I assume that the 1963 Ba'ath coup would have happened on schedule. What about the 1968 one? By that time, Saddam was an important figure in the party, but let's assume that this coup, too, happens without him. How does post-1968 Ba'ath rule without Saddam (who was the key figure in the regime long before he forced the retirement of the nominal president, his relative Ahmad Hassan al Bakr) differ from OTL? (For one thing, does it last that long? Given the number of coups and countercoups in Iraq in the 1960's, I doubt it. Granted, the Ba'ath could have set up a ruthless and efficient security apparatus without Saddam. But maybe not *quite* ruthless and efficient enough...)

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/9k5AMBOs-Qg/l0-Pq3VmjKMJ

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As someone pointed out in reply, the days of endless coups in the Middle East were pretty much over by the 1970's, when regimes learned how to build sufficiently strong security police forces. (Consider how long the Assads have lasted, Gaddafi until 2011, the Saudi and Jordanian monarchies that were considered so endangered, etc.) So a non-Saddam Ba'ath regime might have lasted as long as Saddam. Indeed, it might even still be around, if it avoided some of the numerous wars Saddam got into...
 
The coup happened without him, so it still happens in TTL.

The only potential difference is what a different Baath Party strongman would have done. With the Baathists being fiercely secular and a Shi'ite theocracy next door, the Iran-Iraq War is still likely to happen.

Possible changes? Maybe a different dictator would have avoided using WMD, would have sought to appease the Kurds, or would have settled the Kuwait dispute peacefully. Someone else might also have been less effective at maintaining power.
 
The coup happened without him, so it still happens in TTL.

The only potential difference is what a different Baath Party strongman would have done. With the Baathists being fiercely secular and a Shi'ite theocracy next door, the Iran-Iraq War is still likely to happen.

Possible changes? Maybe a different dictator would have avoided using WMD, would have sought to appease the Kurds, or would have settled the Kuwait dispute peacefully. Someone else might also have been less effective at maintaining power.

Saddam said in his interrogations that the generals in the area made the decision to use gas. He might be lying, but also: Iran-Iraq War happens you're going to have Kurds helping Iran, which means backlash in Iraq. Might not mean WMD use, but the scenario around it might sweep the regime into using them.

Whether or not Iraq will 'like' the US or not depends on how we handle the Iraq-Iran War and whether Iran-Contra happens or not.

Kuwait might happen, might not. Saddam thought he could get away with it because we didn't make a clear statement on defending Kuwait beforehand, so depends on the scenario around it. If Iraq invades Kuwait, the US will station troops in Saudi Arabia, which will lead to an Islamic Extremism backlash. Or *bin Laden will have some other reason to hate the US.

The Invasion might be butterflied, might not be. If the Soviet Union collapses, the US will still be world-hegemon which means we might be cocky enough to try something like this. Butterflies in Iraq will probably not change the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which means that a proxy war will start there, which means Islamic Extremism. However, Afghanistan might not collapse--a big reason for Afghanistan collapsing in the 90s was because of regional politics, which could change with a different regime in Iraq, but might not considering Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia won't change a whole lot. If Afghanistan collapses and Islamic Extremism is on the rise, *9/11 could happen even without the Gulf War. If 9/11 happens, the US, as world-hegemon, will lash out, which means Afghanistan might be a target. If the invasion is handled well, it will embolden the President to do something similar. Iraq might not be the target though, especially with the Ba'athists being strictly secular. Dubya did have a huge role in the decision to target Iraq, and if he's gone the Invasion might be gone too.

So no Saddam might not change a whole lot--the butterflies might change Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., which will probably mean no invasion.
 
What were the arrangements?

In 1978 Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Hafez al-Assad, had agreed to a plan and started to make treaties that would lead to the unification of Iraq and Syria. This plan was to come into effect in July 1979. However, Saddam Hussein, the Deputy Secretary of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, fearful of losing his power to Assad (who was supposed to become the deputy leader in the new union), forced al-Bakr into retirement under threat of violence.

Unity talks did continue between Assad and Saddam after July 1979, but Assad rejected Iraqi demands for a full merger between the two states and for the immediate deployment of Iraq troops into Syria. Instead Assad, perhaps fearful of Iraqi domination and a new war with Israel, advocated a step-by-step approach. The unity talks were eventually suspended indefinitely after an alleged discovery of a Syrian plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein in November 1979.

Shortly after coming to power Saddam claimed to have been informed of a plot against him, supported by the Syrians, and suspended, then later abandoned the plan for unification. In November 1979 both countries officially suspended relations with one another and withdrew their diplomatic missions. Prior to his forced retirement Bakr had expressed to Assad a desire to speed up the process of union, as he feared elements within the Iraqi Ba'ath Party were trying to kill the union plan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq–Syria_relations#Ba.27athist_Iraq_and_Syria
 
Without Saddam sabotaging the negotiations, does the Syrian-Iraqi merger go ahead?

My suspicion is that Syria would never agree to any real union, just a not-very-durable paper confederation at most. Assad would have reason to fear a union would be dominated by Iraq, which was more populous (and which was ruled by Sunnis--whereas Assad was an Alawaite and largely dependent on religious minorities in Syria for his support). And after all, Syria had had unpleasant experiences of entering into a union with a stronger Arab country (Egypt). Assad's overtures were IMO basically tactical and motivated by a fear that after Camp David, Syria might be isolated in its struggle with Israel. Syria wanted Iraqi arms--that's all. And soon the Iranian Revolution provided Syria with an alternate source of support against Israel...

See https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/WStKhCu8UPo/8CwKWLMvqb4J for my discusson of the history of Iraq-Syria "unity" proposals and why they never succeeded.
 
Arab unions of nations were in vogue for a while after the Second World War. None of them lasted, and most of them were half hearted and barely paid lip service to the intended unification.
 
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