SH never invades Kuwait

no invasion of Kuwait would mean no Gulf War obviously, and perhaps no US troops in SA and no 9/11. The world would be vastly different...
Different is correct. But 9/11 was the culmination of Al Qaeda attacks. Would fewer or no US troops in Saudi Arabia have kept Al Qaeda quiet?
 
Different is correct. But 9/11 was the culmination of Al Qaeda attacks. Would fewer or no US troops in Saudi Arabia have kept Al Qaeda quiet?
US troops in SA was more like 'the last straw' for AQ... they were also pissy about US support of Israel in general. But they didn't really get into attacking the US until after the Gulf War...
 
And Assad or Hussein would simply step aside? Let me be the first to be skeptical. Both were totally ruthless dictators and only one can rule. I definitely could see him invade Syria though. What happens then is anyone's guess.
Saddam was vice president to al Bakr, a long term ally. In the proposed alliance, al Bakr would be the #1 and Assad his #2 in the union. The idea was that the leadership would at some point move to Assad. Hence why Saddam deposed al Bakr to stop himself from becoming irrelevant. It was madness with hindsight but what was supposed to happen.
 
Saddam was vice president to al Bakr, a long term ally. In the proposed alliance, al Bakr would be the #1 and Assad his #2 in the union. The idea was that the leadership would at some point move to Assad. Hence why Saddam deposed al Bakr to stop himself from becoming irrelevant. It was madness with hindsight but what was supposed to happen.

I would be astonished if it actually went through. Why would Assad trust al Bakr would step aside when the time came? My guess is al Bakr would have Assad assassinated before that happened.
 
According to George Piro, an FBI Agent who interviewed Saddam, what really convinced him to invade Kuwait wasn't illegal drilling, trade disputes, or oil prices. Those issues had already been resolved by an agreement with Kuwait two months before the invasion. Instead, the real cause behind the war was something much more trivial. In this interview, Piro said that Saddam decided to invade the small but wealthy country based on one brash comment by the Emir of Kuwait regarding Iraqi women.

If the Emir had managed to hold his tongue, then we would see thousands of lives spared and much stronger Iraq, thanks to its newfound influence in OPEC.
Yeah, I am guessing that a case of Americans (as per usual) misunderstanding non whites. That an idiomatic expression.
 
He managed to crush a massive uprising in a month and this is after having his army decimated by 2 war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_uprisings_in_Iraq


There are 2 clear successors, his sons.

You can scratch Uday off that list. He was completely insane and detested by his father for his casual brutality. While Saddam saw violence as a tool, Uday saw it as a toy. He got so out of control that Saddam had him exiled to Switzerland before inviting him back.

Just to give you a list of what Uday was like. This is a list of his activities from Wikipedia.

  • As head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, Uday oversaw the imprisonment and torture of Iraqi athletes who were deemed not to have performed to expectations. He would insult athletes who performed below his expectations by calling them dogs and monkeys to their faces.[23] One defector reported that imprisoned football players were forced to kick a concrete ball after failing to reach the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals.[24] The Iraqi national football team were seen with their heads shaved after failing to achieve a good result in a tournament in the 1980s. Another defector claimed that athletes were dragged through a gravel pit and then immersed in a sewage tank to induce infection in their wounds.[11] After Iraq lost 4–1 to Japan in the quarter finals of the 2000 AFC Asian Cup in Lebanon, goalkeeper Hashim Khamis Hassan, defender Abdul-Jabar Hashim Hanoon and forward Qahtan Chathir Drain were labelled as guilty of loss and eventually flogged for three days by Uday's security.[24]
Other allegations include:

  • Uday was known to intrude on parties and otherwise "discover" women whom he would later rape. Time published an article in 2003 detailing his sexual brutality.[3][25]
  • Usage of an iron maiden on persons running afoul of him.[26]
  • Beating an army officer unconscious when the man refused to allow Uday to dance with his wife; the man later died of his injuries. Uday also shot and killed an army officer who did not salute him.[11]
  • Stealing approximately 1,200 luxury vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce Corniche valued at over $200,000.[citation needed]
  • Plotting, in 2000, to assassinate Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress. This was done shortly after Saddam named his younger son, Qusay, heir-apparent to the dictatorship. Uday allegedly intended to curry favour with his father through the assassination
 
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