The Current Situation in Iraq and Syria Without the Iraq War

You mean just like the ex-Communist and especially ex-Soviet economies underwent a significant shock in the 1990s?

Yes, but worse as the jihadi attacks made them unprofitable for companies to restart work so the state run factories laid idle until the US and Iraq around 2006 came up with something between a Command Economy and a American style capitalist state.

Bremer and a few of his acolytes wanted revolutionary change to all of Iraq while the Pentagon and WH wanted political change in Baghdad and that was where the biggest clash occurred and opened the door for all sorts of problems.

The problems were mostly fixed though by 2008 and the ISI was no more then a few hundred men mostly in Eastern Syria which is what they were in Iraq and Syria in 2002.

Events in 2011 unhinged everything gained and tore apart Syria.
 
Last edited:

BooNZ

Banned
Sure they do. Under the Shah they sent tons of troops into Oman and after 1979
Wrong - there was no Iranian invasion of Oman or even war between Iran and Oman
they actually did try to conquer Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. They moved Saddam's troops of their territory really quickly and then spent the rest of it trying to take the whole country (Saddam sued for peace several times and was rejected).
Wrong and wrong. It took the Iranians over 18 months to remove the majority of the Iraqi forces from Iranian soil. After some debate within the Iranian administration it was decided to continue the hostilities into Iraqi territory with the intention of triggering regime change (somewhat similar to the US in 1991).
They also sent Quds force all over the Middle East. It would be completely in character for them to do that if they thought they could get away with it.
Huh? In what way is sending military resources to established allies a conventional war of choice?
It is true that there were people in the Bush administration that were looking to invade Iran. It is not true, especially in this TL which implies that there is a more rational U.S. leadership, that this was ever going to happen.
Wrong. The US (and its Sunni client states) intervened in 1982 with finance, weaponry and intelligence when it appeared Iraq might fall to a potentially hostile Shite Iran. Again the US (and Sunni client states) intervened in 1991 against Iraq when it appeared Saddam might control too much strategic oil reserves. The Bush administration initiated a war of choice in 2003 against Iraq, but in the case of overt Iranian hostility, it would be a war to maintain the status quo - a defensive war that everyone can support.
The reason Saddam got knocked off was because he relied on genocide to keep himself in power, invaded all of his neighbors including several crucial U.S. allies, and forced the U.S. to take tons of military actions against him. He also just plain went out of his way to act out whenever he should have done otherwise by supporting the PLO in the Second Intifada, celebrating 9/11, and other stuff. That was why we went in.
Wrong. The first US intervention in 1982 (was to support Iraqi aggression) and prevent a regime sympathetic to Iran gaining power and control of strategic oil reserves. The second intervention against Iraq in 1991 was to protect US client states and safeguard oil reserves. The US third intervention in 2003 was an opportunist grab for resources arising from the aftermath of 9-11. According to General Wesley Clark, within weeks of 9-11 the US had a firm plan to take out seven regimes within five years including Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. The only thing that saved Iran was the occupation of Iraq went tits up.
Iran just never did anything like that; they were smarter, and it didn't hurt that they were a lot larger and more powerful. The most the U.S. would have ever considered doing is striking their nuclear program. Going to war with them because they invaded Saddam's Iraq would have been an automatic nonstarter.
Really? You are saying the US [high on victory disease soon after Afghanistan] would abandon its client states in the Gulf, allowing its longest and most formidable rival in the region [Iran] secure Iraqi oil without a fight.
Seriously, can you imagine making that argument to the American people? "Yeah, they invaded our worst enemy in the Middle East, who we have been fighting for decades, which is somehow bad, so we're should go to war with them." Any government that tried to make that argument would be lynched in the streets. We wouldn't have done anything.
From 1982 the US actively aided the Iraqi war effort against Iran, despite Iraq being the aggressor. Until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in late 1990, the US continued to treat Iraq as friendly. The 1991 gulf war [including build up] lasted a little over six months and active hostilities a little over six weeks. Conversely, the US has maintained hostile relations with Iran since 1979 and has client states (or visa-versa) like Israel and Saudi Arabia that are also hostile to Iran.

In any case, around year 2000 most American people would struggle to find either Iraq or Iran on a map or distinguish the difference.
 
Wrong - there was no Iranian invasion of Oman or even war between Iran and Oman

Wrong and wrong. It took the Iranians over 18 months to remove the majority of the Iraqi forces from Iranian soil. After some debate within the Iranian administration it was decided to continue the hostilities into Iraqi territory with the intention of triggering regime change (somewhat similar to the US in 1991).

Huh? In what way is sending military resources to established allies a conventional war of choice?

Wrong. The US (and its Sunni client states) intervened in 1982 with finance, weaponry and intelligence when it appeared Iraq might fall to a potentially hostile Shite Iran. Again the US (and Sunni client states) intervened in 1991 against Iraq when it appeared Saddam might control too much strategic oil reserves. The Bush administration initiated a war of choice in 2003 against Iraq, but in the case of overt Iranian hostility, it would be a war to maintain the status quo - a defensive war that everyone can support.

Wrong. The first US intervention in 1982 (was to support Iraqi aggression) and prevent a regime sympathetic to Iran gaining power and control of strategic oil reserves. The second intervention against Iraq in 1991 was to protect US client states and safeguard oil reserves. The US third intervention in 2003 was an opportunist grab for resources arising from the aftermath of 9-11. According to General Wesley Clark, within weeks of 9-11 the US had a firm plan to take out seven regimes within five years including Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. The only thing that saved Iran was the occupation of Iraq went tits up.

Really? You are saying the US [high on victory disease soon after Afghanistan] would abandon its client states in the Gulf, allowing its longest and most formidable rival in the region [Iran] secure Iraqi oil without a fight.

From 1982 the US actively aided the Iraqi war effort against Iran, despite Iraq being the aggressor. Until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in late 1990, the US continued to treat Iraq as friendly. The 1991 gulf war [including build up] lasted a little over six months and active hostilities a little over six weeks. Conversely, the US has maintained hostile relations with Iran since 1979 and has client states (or visa-versa) like Israel and Saudi Arabia that are also hostile to Iran.

In any case, around year 2000 most American people would struggle to find either Iraq or Iran on a map or distinguish the difference.

They sent an expeditionary force beyond their shores to defend their interests is my point (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhofar_Rebellion)

They're sending troops and advisers to advance their regional interests.

Your post does not reflect knowledge of the fact that the world changed between 1982 (a couple years after the end of the hostage crisis) and 2003, nearly twenty years later. Yes, two years after the end of the hostage crisis and before the Persian Gulf War we didn't want Iran to have hegemony over Iraq. I'll admit "very quickly" might have been a bit strong, but in the majority of the years the war was ongoing the fighting was on Iraqi soil because Iran wanted to overthrow Saddam and install a puppet regime. By 2003 Saddam had changed this because of his attacks on U.S. allies, genocide, assassination attempt on George H.W. Bush, etc., coupled with the memory of the Iran Hostage Crisis and the Beirut Barracks Bombing growing dimmer.

Wesley Clark is a partisan Democrat who has said and done a lot of stupid things, not least of them nearly starting a war with Russia by ordering NATO troops to attack their garrison at the Pristina Airport. I'm also skeptical of whether he would be in a position to know anything like that given that he left the military a year and a half before 9/11 and was politically at odds with Bush.

In a word, yes. That would mean backing up through force of arms the country that by this time was viewed as the most dangerous enemy America had, Ba'athist Iraq. Things change in twenty years time. And the people you are saying will be eager to do this are the ones who spent most of a decade trying to get American popular opinion behind invading Iraq. That isn't going to happen.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Iraq was a radicalizing cauldron of hated, division and religious radicalism that was getting ready to explode like Syria and Saddam was a demented tyrant in less and less control of his state and less and less connected to reality.

You are going to have an uprising and my guess is the House of Saddam gets pushed aside by the religious radicals that they allowed to grow strong. Sunni Iraq might be led by Zarqawi or some Iraqi theocrat, but it won't be by Saddam.

Syria goes up in flames as well and religious radical Sunnis from Iraq take the Sunni sections of Syria that Assad can't hold.
Question--would the Iraqi Baathists ally with these Sunni radicals in this TL? Or would the Sunni radicals purge them even if they are offering to be cooperative?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Yes, but worse as the jihadi attacks made them unprofitable for companies to restart work so the state run factories laid idle until the US and Iraq around 2006 came up with something between a Command Economy and a American style capitalist state.

Bremer and a few of his acolytes wanted revolutionary change to all of Iraq while the Pentagon and WH wanted political change in Baghdad and that was where the biggest clash occurred and opened the door for all sorts of problems.

The problems were mostly fixed though by 2008 and the ISI was no more then a few hundred men mostly in Eastern Syria which is what they were in Iraq and Syria in 2002.

Events in 2011 unhinged everything gained and tore apart Syria.
Withdrawing from Iraq in December 2011 didn't help things, now did it?
 
Actually no - both Iraq and Syria were largely secular regimes - religious radicals arose from a grossly malfeasant occupation, which created a power vacuum in the Iraqi space. The occupation radicalised elements of the Iraqi military, while drawing in additional militants and extremists to 'liberate' Iraq. It respect of Syria, the religious radicals are the ones currently being sponsored by the West and their client states.

Assad's father built Mosques with images of Khomeini in them https://www.amazon.com/Eastward-Tar...dp/0375705767?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0 and considering Saddam's back to faith program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign I think its fair to say the idea either were secular before Western intervention is a myth.
 
Withdrawing from Iraq in December 2011 didn't help things, now did it?

Three big mistakes the Obama WH did in 2010 and 2011. They threw their support to Maliki who didn't have the biggest bloc for who knows the reason either way they had a secular alternative who in fact received the most votes to support.

Then they cut off the diplomacy to Iraq almost completely with the argument Iraqi events need to happen organically without American input.

Then we decided to go ultra light with our footprint as in 100 SF guys in a base in Baghdad in 2012 which was too little to have any say diplomatically or military.

The military wanted to keep 20K. Hillary supported keeping 10K troops we ended up with 100 when things in the Syria were falling apart.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Two big mistakes the Obama WH did in 2010 and 2011. They threw their support to Maliki who didn't have the biggest bloc for who knows the reason either way they had a secular alternative who in fact received the most votes to support.

Would Allawi have actually been able to form a coalition, though?

Also, question--wasn't what Maliki did in Iraq in 2010 similar to what Netanyahu did in Israel in 2009?

Then we decided to go ultra light with our footprint as in 100 SF guys in a base in Baghdad in 2012 which was too little to have any say diplomatically or military.

The military wanted to keep 20K. Hillary supported keeping 10K troops we ended up with 100 when things in the Syria were falling apart.

So, should the U.S. have pressured Maliki harder on keeping 10K U.S. troops in Iraq?
 

gaijin

Banned
Question--would the Iraqi Baathists ally with these Sunni radicals in this TL? Or would the Sunni radicals purge them even if they are offering to be cooperative?

Of course they would not. The only reason the former Baathist worked together with Jihadists now is because they were kicked out of power and had two mutual enemies: the US and the Shia. Remove the 2003 war and the Baathist will view the Jihadists the same way they viewed the Shia: potential threat to their power and thus enemies.

Of course Neocons like JMC are eagerly pushing the false narrative that Iraq (and as a result Syria) was becoming a radicalized hellhole anyway. This makes for a convenient excuse: "sure the aftermath of our invasion was a disaster for Iraq, but that was going to happen anyway so in hindsight we didn't really mess up at all." Key point to remember here is that until the events post 2003 Iraq may have been a brutal dictatorship, but it was for all intends and purposes a non religious dictatorship. Nowadays Iraq is a series of ethnic and religion based dictatorships. This is very very awkward for the Neocons now "radical Islam" is once again the enemy. Blame needs to be shifted urgently.

If you look at the situation you will see that Saddam and the Baathist were claiming to be pious Muslims but that was PR only. They were in fact only interested in one thing: staying in power. Anyone who believes that a psycho like Saddam could actually be a true Muslim is deluded. Islam means "submission", does Saddam seem like the kind of person who would let anyone, even a god, stand above him?? He was good at faking sincerity maybe, but that is what psychopaths do: wear whatever mask is needed to get what they want.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Of course they would not. The only reason the former Baathist worked together with Jihadists now is because they were kicked out of power and had two mutual enemies: the US and the Shia. Remove the 2003 war and the Baathist will view the Jihadists the same way they viewed the Shia: potential threat to their power and thus enemies.

Of course Neocons like JMC are eagerly pushing the false narrative that Iraq (and as a result Syria) was becoming a radicalized hellhole anyway. This makes for a convenient excuse: "sure the aftermath of our invasion was a disaster for Iraq, but that was going to happen anyway so in hindsight we didn't really mess up at all." Key point to remember here is that until the events post 2003 Iraq may have been a brutal dictatorship, but it was for all intends and purposes a non religious dictatorship. Nowadays Iraq is a series of ethnic and religion based dictatorships. This is very very awkward for the Neocons now "radical Islam" is once again the enemy. Blame needs to be shifted urgently.

If you look at the situation you will see that Saddam and the Baathist were claiming to be pious Muslims but that was PR only. They were in fact only interested in one thing: staying in power. Anyone who believes that a psycho like Saddam could actually be a true Muslim is deluded. Islam means "submission", does Saddam seem like the kind of person who would let anyone, even a god, stand above him?? He was good at faking sincerity maybe, but that is what psychopaths do: wear whatever mask is needed to get what they want.
Regardless of whether or not Saddam Hussein was faking his faith, he appear to have taken things to a very serious level--for instance, imposing Islamic punishments for thieves and whatnot.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Ture and should represent all of Syria rather then the ruling body.

You expect dictators to accurately represent their people?

However considering how Netanyahu's leadership turned out I don't have too much faith in such workings.

Agreed; however, I'm just saying that what Maliki did in Iraq in 2010 wasn't completely unprecedented or completely unusual.
 
From what I'm seeing, both @jmc247 and @gaijin are busy ignoring parts of one anothers' argument. JMC, do you deny that American intervention destabilized the area, contributing to or inflaming other factors present? Gaijin, do you deny that both the governments of Iraq and Syria were making shifts towards Islamism, whether in substance or in show?
 
Agreed; however, I'm just saying that what Maliki did in Iraq in 2010 wasn't completely unprecedented or completely unusual.

He sat on his ass with the support of Iran and the US and managed to get the courts to redefine what it means to have the biggest bloc therein getting the first choice at forming the government by negotiating the biggest combined electoral bloc.

In the end that same redefinition was used against him in 2014 by Abadi to take the PM chair from under him with him in 2014 arguing the Allawi 2010 position that his most seats means he gets to form the government.

I don't personally have a high regard for a list parliamentary system for emerging democracies, especially in states divided on religious and sectarian lines.
 
Last edited:
Top