Springtime for Saddam and Iraq

Suppose in 2003, Iraq is not invaded and Saddam's regime continues to govern the nation.

Fast forward eight years, assume that Obama is the President of America, and that the global financial crisis occurs mostly the same as in OTL, possibly somewhat less badly for the US.

How would Saddam's Iraq be affected by the economic downturn and the Arab Spring?
 
The downturn he'll survive by continuing to peddle Iraqi oil without the disruptions of OTL.

His response to the Arab Spring will make Bashar Al-Assad look moderate by comparison... in fact, it'll be more reminiscent of Papa Assad than his son.
 
The downturn he'll survive by continuing to peddle Iraqi oil without the disruptions of OTL.

His response to the Arab Spring will make Bashar Al-Assad look moderate by comparison... in fact, it'll be more reminiscent of Papa Assad than his son.

There won't be an Arab Spring in Iraq, if the whole movement isn't butterflied away by the lack of invasion. The first group of protesters will get machine-gunned, the second group will be rounded up and tortured along with their families and anyone they've ever known, and there won't be a third group.
 
Honestly I think the Arab Spring was just sort of a powder keg that only needed a spark.

I agree with the "Arab Spring has no chance" thesis though, Saddam didn't even allow his citizens to own cellular phones. Forget the cracks in the machine... they were only minute dents that could protect you for a few minutes against the onslaught of the almighty state.
 
There won't be an Arab Spring in Iraq, if the whole movement isn't butterflied away by the lack of invasion. The first group of protesters will get machine-gunned, the second group will be rounded up and tortured along with their families and anyone they've ever known, and there won't be a third group.

counter argument is that the Invasion of Iraq DELAYED the uprisings by diverting people's attention away from thier own crappy govts and onto the USA.

but yes and Arab Spring in Iraq would be violent. Peaceful protestors will be machine gunned.

but just maybe the regular army rebels , Badr Birgade, Mahdi Army and Kurdish Pershmerga rise up.

and we end up with an Iraq Civil war. especially if Egypt and Libya still go .
 
counter argument is that the Invasion of Iraq DELAYED the uprisings by diverting people's attention away from thier own crappy govts and onto the USA.

but yes and Arab Spring in Iraq would be violent. Peaceful protestors will be machine gunned.

but just maybe the regular army rebels , Badr Birgade, Mahdi Army and Kurdish Pershmerga rise up.

and we end up with an Iraq Civil war. especially if Egypt and Libya still go .

Saddam crushed the Kurds before, if they rise again he'll crush them twice as hard. If the army rises, then that's what the Republican Guard is for.
 
The US could do what it did in Libyan, which is basically the international version of pushing on a short person's head to keep them at bay while they try to wail away at you, and then kicking them in the balls.

The US is more familiar and comfortable with intervening in Iraq, and with US aid, an Iraqi uprising would go better than on its own.
 
In theory. The two actually despised each other-Daddy Assad was an ally of Iran during the '80s, and even sent troops to Saudi in 1990-91, as well as putting three divisions on the Iraq-Syria border during ODS.
 
In theory. The two actually despised each other-Daddy Assad was an ally of Iran during the '80s, and even sent troops to Saudi in 1990-91, as well as putting three divisions on the Iraq-Syria border during ODS.

Indeed, funny the split that happened between the two Ba'ath Parties.

My suspicions rest more on distrusting the ambitious Hussein more than anything, the difference between the two of them of course was mainly that Assad died an old man in his bed, while Saddam died at the snapping end of the noose.
 
There was actually a proposed merger of Iraq and Syria in the mid '70s. It fell apart when no one could agree on who would be President. Saddam, naturally, felt he ought to be, while Assad felt otherwise. And when Saddam took full power in Iraq back in '79, the "conspiracy" that he said existed in the Baath Party that supposedly planned his assassination and a coup was a Syrian-backed one. The videotape of that is infamous: the deputy PM reads a confession with the eagerness that doing so would save his life (it didn't). Then one of Saddam's aides reads a list of names, and those named were told to get up and leave the meeting hall. Saddam's puffing on a cigar as the list is read, and when one of those named protests, Saddam shouts "Get Out!" at the man. The next day all of those so named-about a hundred-were shot. And Saddam's own ministers performed the executions to prove their loyalty.
 
I think people are overestimating Saddam's regime. By 2003 his army was in shambles. Yes he probably could have rebuilt it somewhat through trade with countries like Russia and China. But his army would have been nowhere near what it was in 1991.

Moreover, people forget that there were already UN-imposed no fly zones over southern and northern Iraq. And the Kurds already had a de facto statelet outside Saddam's control.

Had the Arab Spring occurred, he would have tried to put it down like Syria's, but just as Syria's revolt is enduring, Iraq's would too. The U.S. and the UK might well have, as in OTL Libya, expanded the scope of the existing NFZs to help aid an uprising. Iran would have funneled weapons and training to Shi'a groups, and the Kurdish peshmerga would have used its own territory as a base and pushed from the north.

So, no, I don't think Saddam would have survived.
 
Also, Obama wouldn't be president. He only ran - and was only competitive with Hillary - because of the Iraq War. Absent that he's still just the senator from Illinois, and Hillary is probably president.
 
Top