Saddam Prepared better for the Iraq-Iran war?

This would require Saddam to be sensible and keep the experienced and talented officers. Unfortunately he wouldn't as he would worry about being exposed as the strategic and tactical cretin that he was.
 
Any plan centered around the idea "... and then the natives will welcome our soldiers with open arms" should be met with a good deal of suspicion, in my view.
IIRC, the Iraqi aims were at first to occupy the coastal strip which was mostly populated by Arab-ethnic inhabitants, and this was thought feasible because they were ethnically distinct from the rest of Iran and would therefore not resist the invasion. The invasion part of that went fairly well, helped by the chaos in the Iranian armed forces following the fall of the Shah, but the locals did not joyfully become part of a greater Iraq.
If you can somehow stop the war going beyond this stage, perhaps by increasing the amount of Iranian disorganisation caused by the purges, you might end up with Iraq occupying that area for a longer period.
 
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At the very least if Saddam had actually decided on fighting a war with a war economy, Iraq could hardly have done any worse than it did. Iraq might also have had somewhat lesser debt problems and this would butterfly away the USA's involvement in the region, leaving Hussein one dictator among many in a region full of them.
 
One major problem: the Soviets wouldn't sell the Iraqis the weapons systems actually requested-one key example: when Imperial Iran purchased the F-14, the Iraqis asked for MiG-23s to counter them. The MiGs delivered had no radar-guided missiles, an "export only" radar, no RWR systems, and so on. Another example: The T-72s delivered pre-1980 (a division's worth) had no laser rangefinders and powered traverse. And then you get to "retiring" competent generals.....a similar process would repeat before DESERT STORM....generals who knew what would happen in the event of war were "relieved."
 
In order to successfully pull off an invasion, a LOT of things would have to have been in Iraq's favor. Saddam could certainly have had better results by holding off on the officer purges, or not putting political officers into each unit to keep an eye out for disloyal behavior, etc. The usual Red Army issues, coupled with not nearly enough numbers.
If we're keeping Saddam in charge of this little expedition, it would have gone much better had Ayatollah Khomeini disbanded the Iranian Army at the insistence of his advisors, trusting in the Revolutionary Guard to loyally handle any threats to the republic. With this done, and an all-in Iraqi blitz into Khuzestan province that expected to actually fight instead of accept flowers from a grateful populace, then there's a *chance* of holding their captured territory until negotiations conclude, or at least beyond the 2 years they did OTL. Mayhap even more support to the Kurds on the Iranian side of the border to help keep them off balance. Anything they do would have to be done FAST in order to set up enough fortifications to hold off the consequent Iranian human-wave counterassaults.

In all, Khuzestan's about as much as we could expect Iraq to conquer, and as mentioned above the stars would really have to align in their favor first.
 
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