Well, this is one mass of butterflies
I was a Staff Officer when DESERT FOX was happening.This sort of scenario was much discussed.
I think you might want to check the first 10 chapters of Clancy's "Executive Orders"
In his view, Iran orchestrates the assassination of Saddam, and the nation is quickly united in a Unified Islamic Republic.
When I originally read the book, that seemed plausible,but, knowing a bit more about the culture now, doubt that the Sunni Arabs would stand for a unification with Iran...I have little doubt that Iran would have grabbed the Shia Areas.
A possible outcome is the creation of three states - basically, the Kurdish Autonomous Region (NORTHERN WATCH) becomes a sovereign nation, the Shia SOUTHERN WATCH region becomes part of Iran (again) and the Sunni area holds out with Saudi assistance, and probably keeps the Iraq name.
There's a lot of questions - how long will Kurdistan exist before Turkey or Iran take it over?
It's not true that Muqtada Al Sadr is the nephew of the former Iranian Prime Minister, but there is some sort of familial relationship with high level members of the Iranian Ruling Council. Part of the reason the US forces made the "Thunder Run" to Baghdad was to get there before Sadr's Armored Column could get there from Iran. There was an ARCLIGHT strike on a Republican Guard unit that coincidentally closed a mountain pass that the Mahdi Armored Brigade needed - odd that the mission was delayed until the unit was in the pass, and not while it was out on the plain...there was some heated words between the Iranians and the US, since the ARCLIGHT mission supposedly damaged some of the leading elements of the Mahdi Brigade - one of those, "Well thanks for killing those RG bastards, but we would have kicked their butts anyway, and now it's going to take us a week to clear the road and get our tanks through."
CENTCOM - "Sorry 'bout that"
I doubt that we would have sent peace keepers into the post-Saddam quagmire. I can't say that anybody in the US or Saudi would have been happy with Iran acquiring the Shia area, but would there have been a war?
I especially wouldn't have wanted to be a Sunni Arab in the shrunken Iraq - especially if Iran took over Kurdistan as well as the South.
Not all the Shia - who are ethnically Persian but racially Arab - want to be Iranian again. The possible option is that the Shia areas might have become a client state of Iran, with some degree of autonomy, and the Kurdish areas might have been a highly US supervised area to keep the Turks and Iranians out.
Not sure if this would have had much effect on the 2000 elections, nor the 911 attacks.
I still happen to be a big fan of Al Gore - any body that REQUESTS to go to a war zone, when they can legally stay safe in Europe, has got a good set of stones. My personal opinion is that a Gore Presidency would have been a HELL of a lot better in the post 911 world - but that is a different discussion...
