WI: Blair sends no troops to Iraq

RogueBeaver

RogueBeaver

I think Blair would do it anyways- in terms of hawkishness he was only outranked by Thatcher and Churchill among postwar PMs. But even if Blair doesn't, the Lab left still hates him (for destroying their ideological fantasies). He might lose less seats (OTL went from 413 to 356) in the 2005 election, but I don't think he would try for a fourth term.

In terms of Iraq: Bush has a harder time selling it if the UK doesn't join, though he'd still get Oz. Howard and Blair get re-elected, but Bush might lose to Kerry in 2004.
 

Eternity

If Britain dosn't go into Iraq.

1) The US still does go in. Much the same thing as now except it would be another US Vietnam with no coalition troops involved. A pure US enterprise.

2) The US does not invade on it's own. Saddam would probably still be around and in charge. If not him, then one of his sons. Sanctions may be working for disarmament here and Iraq certainly wouldn't be a nest of terrorists.

Say what you like about Saddam (Yes, he was evil) but he did not tolerate terrorists in Iraq. If only the UK was like that instead of giving them free accomadation and money. **Sigh**
 

Hendryk

Banned
I'm among those who think that the Bush administration would have gone ahead even without British support. Also, while not an expert on military matters, I don't think that no British forces would have made a significant difference on the ground. Maybe Basra would be somewhat messier but that's about it.

OTOH, the British would have joined the French and Germans as the targets of the Bush propaganda machine. Expect "traitorous tea-sipping appeasers" to become a favorite phrase of the neocons along the notorious "cheese-eating surrender monkeys".
 

Scott_B

Blairs popularity stays high, so I wouldn't expect him to just up and go, handing power to Brown without a fight.

We may well see no PM Brown, or a straight out leadership contest between Brown and a chosen Blair successor.


Britain would still be heavily committed in Afgahistan, indeed it would go better instead of splitting our resources.
 

Alratan

I imagine that the British government will give all the support they can short of actually deploying troops in Iraq - logistical etc. The excuse they'll use privately is that the UK is simply incapable of contributing, that Afghanistan is the limit of the military's capabilities.

This will probably blunt the hostile rhetoric from the US. In the longer term, Blair may feel confident enough to push out Brown in 2005. This would have some very interesting consequences down the line. When the bust comes Brown will be in an incredibly strong position.
 
RogueBeaver

RogueBeaver

If Blair reneged, the Labour Party would go through a civil war process that would make the Thatcher coup look like child's play. Blair could probably overpower Gordo by brute force, but by 2010 he'd be in for a massacre at Tory hands.
 
V-J

V-J

Well, this is a bit opaque. Does Blair offer moral, logistical support? Or do you mean he directly opposes it?

Both are pretty ASBish because they go completely against Blair's actual personality. Blair was committed to whatever the US would pretty much as soon as 9/11 happened. It wouldn't occur to Blair to oppose the US on any major foreign policy issue.

Really, the main realistic WI is WI Blair is defeated in the Commons on the authorisation of war. Now that is an interesting one. It would be incredibly damaging for him in the short-term, but in the long-term it might work to his advantage.
 

Frige

I think before you can see all the results you need to know how and when this happens.
Iraq Enquiry said:
SIR RODERIC LYNE: The Americans said publicly that they could do this without. I think the point our military witnesses were making was that they would much rather do it with us, from a military point of view, not just a coalition point of view. But just coming back to the question of the assumption, if we were now looking at the correspondence between the Prime Minister and President Bush and what they said to each other in private and so on, would it appear from that that the Prime Minister, at a fairly early stage, made a very firm commitment to President Bush that he would go all the way with President Bush whatever?
MR JONATHAN POWELL: As I said earlier, there is a if you are going to persuade people of taking a particular course, you need to convince them that you are with them. If you go into it and say, "By the way, I'm having nothing to do with this. We're right here on our own, but you go ahead and we think you should do it that way", your advice is likely to be treated more sceptically.
SIR RODERIC LYNE: Was this a tactical commitment? Was it something he could have got out of later on if he needed to.
MR JONATHAN POWELL: Well, yes, as we know, because President Bush said to him, in March, "We can go ahead without you. We don't want regime change in London". So there was a way out, and he wanted it in March, and Rumsfeld also said it publicly, of course.
Click to expand...
With this in mind I think the Bush government is likely to still be more friendly to the Blair government. Blair being who he is I think making a decision to not send troops would be done amicably, or not at all. The British government, unlike the French government, was in favour of the second resolution to legitimise the coming invasion, so unlike the French government the British government could make the case that they were not opposed to invading in principle but given the UN situation they could not go ahead.
 

PMN1

I wouldn't be continually having to remind peole on a curent affairs board I am on that saddam would have died at some time in the future even of old age so any criticism of ousting him in 2003 has to include a viable scenario in which with saddam gone and his sons and their supporters agreeing not to want to take over, all Iraqis think 'it was saddam who made us do to each other what we did and I wont look for revenge'

Is that ASB?
 
Last edited:

Wyboy26

Fireman Strike

I went to Iraq with my Regiment in 2003 for the invasion, but in late 2002 we were busy in the Green Goddess during the fireman strike, with meant that a majority of the Armed Forces had to cover the UK,

What about if the fireman strike didn't finish and carried on after the invasion past summer 2003, meaning that no large number of British Ground troops were available just naval and air units.
 

BlairWitch749

Banned
Bush might delay the invasion to shift the 4th infantry division away from Turkey and get them to Kuwait... during the couple of weeks of redeployment there would be one more round of negotiations and if Saddam doesn't fold hard he will still get it... everything else will be more or less otl
 

NCW

Whither the Tories ?

Alratan said:
I imagine that the British government will give all the support they can short of actually deploying troops in Iraq - logistical etc. The excuse they'll use privately is that the UK is simply incapable of contributing, that Afghanistan is the limit of the military's capabilities.
Click to expand...

I wonder what the reaction of the Conservatives would be ? Traditionally, the Tories have criticised Labour for being soft on terrorism and not providing enough support to the USA.

If Britain only provided morale support, then I can see at least some Tory MPs criticising the Government for it's lukewarm response. Maybe Ian Duncan Smith would join in to try and bolster his support within his party. Of course this would backfire spectacularly when it became apparent that the country as a whole were against the Iraq war. IDS would probably still be removed as party leader towards the end of 2003, but we could see him replaced by some-one other than Michael Howard.

Cheers,
Nigel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top