The West Lets Iraq Invade Kuwait

@Parker: The Indonesian Invasion of East Timor was in the 60s and was also in the Pacific region, not in the Middle East. Religion in East Timor had nothing to do with the US' approval of the Indonesian invasion. Mohammed Suharto was a firm US ally and the US wanted Indonesia's support after being kicked out of Vietnam.
 
Husein thought after speaking to an American representaive that he had the all clear on this one and wasn't Kuwait once part of Iraq?
 

Bearcat

Banned
This thread only works with a POD that makes oil valueless. Either nuclear works out in a big way, or we get widespread cheap solar, or something.

If oil lost most of its value, this would be like the wars in Africa: most American politicians simply wouldn't give a shit.

So long as oil runs the world's industries, the US will seek to make sure that no one gets a near monopoly on 50% or whatever of resources. The fact that its Saddam Jackass Hussein only matters ever so slightly.
 
Simple, Iraq seizes Kuwaït after detonating its first atomic bomb(s) and can blow up Ryiadh and Tel-Aviv, western opinions aren´t going to accept war with a nuclear power.

It is also made clear to Saoud Arabia that Iraq is ready to share much of the profit from the invasion of Kuwaït but also that allowing into arabian territories foreign forces will mean an all-out attack on its own oil facilities, followed by an all-out invasion and if it is defeated, a few dozens to hundreds of tonnes of VX gas (Saddam may or may not be bluffing whever he have these or not).

Thus, Saoud Arabia doesn´t want an attack from its own territories. A naval invasion of Kuwaït from sea would fail and starting from Turkey, the US would have to fight through Iraq itself, ditto for launching an attack from isreal through Jordania, it would alienate the US´s arabe allies.

Saddam Husseïn promises a Stalingrad scenario, in Kuwaït city, every building are linked by tunnels. Every door and house are booby trapped, western armies would have to destroy the city and effectively massacre most of its civilian population to liberate it.


The US starts upgrading the Saoudian military against an eventual Iraq attack, while Saddam Hussein races to construct more nuclear bombs and rockets.
 
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@Wyr: We're assuming an antagonistic relationship (like OTL) between the West and Saddam Hussein, a nuclear program takes a hell of a long time to develop, which leaves plenty of room for strict sanctions against Iraq. If it gets to the point that Iraq shows that it's willing to toss around nukes in the Middle East the US will invade, regardless of the consequences, way too much of a security risk not to do so, Iraq will be absolutely annihilated.
 

Cook

Banned
Huh. Well we should remember that the Americans went out of their way to tell the Indonesians that they would support them marching in and invading the staunchly Christian East Timor…
The Indonesian Invasion of East Timor was in the 60s and was also in the Pacific region, not in the Middle East.

East Timor was actually invaded by Indonesia in December 1975. It occurred shortly after the Portuguese cut and ran from the province, having done nothing to prepare the Timorese for independence. Fretilin, the Revolutionary Front for and Independent East Timor, declared Unilateral Independence from Portugal on 28 November 1975, and in their profound wisdom declared East Timor a People’s Democratic Republic. The small republic’s Catholicism was irrelevant to the secular leadership of Fretalin.

The Indonesians were fearful of Communism gaining a foothold in the Archipelago, with South Vietnam falling to the North only eight months before and were not going to allow a socialist state to be established right in the centre of the archipelago regardless of anyone’s objections. The American’s, having just seen Saigon fall, were not going to object. Australia, the closest nation to East Timor and the regional power, was in the midst of a political crisis and was paying little heed to events a couple of hundred kilometres north of Darwin.

The circumstances and time period of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor are so different from Kuwait’s that there are no lessons to be learned from it that can be reasonably applied to Kuwait.

Incidentally, just to prove that they hadn’t learned anything in spending twenty-five years in exile in Mozambique, the Fretalin once again declared Eat Timor a People’s Democratic Republic upon independence the second time in 2002, and once again fell to infighting between various factions in an attempted coup.
 
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@Wyr: We're assuming an antagonistic relationship (like OTL) between the West and Saddam Hussein, a nuclear program takes a hell of a long time to develop, which leaves plenty of room for strict sanctions against Iraq. If it gets to the point that Iraq shows that it's willing to toss around nukes in the Middle East the US will invade, regardless of the consequences, way too much of a security risk not to do so, Iraq will be absolutely annihilated.


There is a reason the war against Iraq started the time it did, Washingtion didn´t give a damn about the poor opressed kuwaities but wanted to prevent Saddam Hussein from having atomic bombs and other such things when the targets of these no longer where Iran and he couldn´t be controled with money, Kuwaït was just a casus belli. Because intervening against Iraq if it did have atomic bombs would be much more politically difficult.

The house of Saoud will not allow an operation from its territories if there are consequences for their actions, without Saoud Arabia how can they get to Kuwaït? Tactical nuclear attacks followed by naval invasion?

It will be hard justifying the liberation of Kuwaït if it means its urban zones will have to be obliterated.

Biggest thing, isreal. Saddam Hussein doesn´t need to be actually willing to nuke Tel-Aviv, the mainstream medias will assume he will strike Tel-Aviv in case of US attack and isreal will retaliate, destroying Iraq. That is going to cut the enthousiasme.
 
Dammit, why do people keep seeing Dukakis as a pacifist?
He was ex-army for Christ sake!

Yes, 1957-58 right? Every able bodied man, even in Massachusetts, pretty much had to join then. Army was the way to go as there were only 2 years served. Dr. Spock (the baby one) had not become radicalized yet, too. People thought to get it out of the way. I never thought him a pacifist, especially since so much of Massachusetts' steroid economic boom was leveraged upon the then growing military factories in the state, but he would have given lip service. Carter was an Annapolis career ex submarine officer, slated to go on the first Nuke before leaving service, but you saw what he was able to hem/haw. Or so it seems to me.
 
There is a reason the war against Iraq started the time it did, Washingtion didn´t give a damn about the poor opressed kuwaities but wanted to prevent Saddam Hussein from having atomic bombs and other such things when the targets of these no longer where Iran and he couldn´t be controled with money, Kuwaït was just a casus belli. Because intervening against Iraq if it did have atomic bombs would be much more politically difficult.

The house of Saoud will not allow an operation from its territories if there are consequences for their actions, without Saoud Arabia how can they get to Kuwaït? Tactical nuclear attacks followed by naval invasion?

It will be hard justifying the liberation of Kuwaït if it means its urban zones will have to be obliterated.

Biggest thing, isreal. Saddam Hussein doesn´t need to be actually willing to nuke Tel-Aviv, the mainstream medias will assume he will strike Tel-Aviv in case of US attack and isreal will retaliate, destroying Iraq. That is going to cut the enthousiasme.

The West wanted Kuwaiti oil, freeing a people from the possibility of living under a monstrous dictatorship was a pleasant side effect to policymakers as it often is with such wars.

Hussein even at the time of the Gulf War had suffered serious setbacks in his program, Israel did to Iraq what it currently does to Iran and bombed its nuclear facilities, suspected or confirmed, the Western invasion wasn't motivated by nuclear weapons as much as it was motivated by Iraq's upsetting the balance of power.

Saudi Arabia WILL permit an operation from its borders as it did OTL if said operation involves putting down a major regional threat, allowing Iraq to establish itself as a power in the region was within neither Saudi nor American interests, there is no room for compromise in that particular issue, EVER. Saudi Arabia tends to like a moderately stable Middle East that preserves the status quo and uses various regional powers to keep down any one nation from becoming too powerful, Hussein's attack not only constituted an attack on an important Saudi and US ally but also constituted Iraq's efforts to upset the balance, the second the first Iraqi trooper crossed into Kuwait it was only a matter of time until someone intervened.

Even Saddam Hussein would be thinking long and hard about introducing nuclear weapons into the equation in any conflict with the West or its allies in the region. No reasonable nation is going to be letting someone toss nukes around, especially not in the Middle East, if it gets that ugly it will end very, very badly for Iraq, which is why in many cases not even the most psychotic dictators introduced some of the more interesting things they'd cooked up during a war.
 
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