alternatehistory.com

I was reading William O'Niel's "A Bubble in Time" and he talks about how ill timed Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was. If Saddam had invaded tens years before in 1979 following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the USA would have had too much on its plate to care about the invasion of a feudal monarchy. So say Saddam is able to get his hands on Kuwait in 1979. Would he have the resources to win a war against Iran? This does assume he's interested in more warfare, but he was a megalomaniac, and an aggressive one at that. As Saddam would probably play the powers off each other as he'd done before, he's in the perfect position to conquer his way to a strong regional power by seizing Iran's oilfields. And after Iran, who's next?
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