Saddam wins in 1981

Fascinating. Assuming Iraq doesn't try to Bite Off More than It Can Chew, I assume the immediate results are border adjustments, installation of a new regime in Tehran (?), and a dramatic increase in Iraq's influence in the region.
 
The Islamic revolution would be strangled in its infancy, and Iraq, IIRC, was quite a (culturally) progressive place in the earlier days of Saddam.
 
Fascinating. Assuming Iraq doesn't try to Bite Off More than It Can Chew, I assume the immediate results are border adjustments, installation of a new regime in Tehran (?), and a dramatic increase in Iraq's influence in the region.

These were the stated goals, so it not all that major on paper.

  1. Control of the Shatt al-Arab waterway by Iraqis
  2. Acquisition of the three islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, on behalf of the UAE.
  3. Annexation of Khuzestan to Iraq
  4. Prevent the spread of the Islamic Revolution in the region

Control of a waterway is always major, and Iraq would be gaining large oil fields. There was no regime change called. What Saddam wanted was control, and the closetest thing to internal change was supporting the
People's Mujahedin of Iran.
 
Through Saddam might want to press a little deeper into Iran simply to weaken the Ayatollah’s regime and spark a civil war. In order to keep Iran on it's kness.
 

tqm111

Banned
It might've toppled the Iranian regime.

And Sadaam would be held in high esteem in the Middle East. It might have spurred him onto other things.
 

Cook

Banned
WI the Iraqi invasion of Iran was the success Iraq, and much of the world expected it to be?

Did we?
I don't remember that being the case but I guess it depended on who tv news you watched.

Never the less, had the invasion reach the originally planned stop points Saddam runs into a serious problem; a hugely popular Revolutionary leader who had no intention to agreeing to a Ceasefire or Peace Treaty.

The resulting trench lines would have been further east than was actually the case but other than that what changes?

Saddam cannot decisively defeat the Iranians militarily, they’d just fall back further, and while they could not initially defeat him they would just keep grinding away.

 
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