WI: No Iraq-Iran War

Except the USSR KNOWS this is a line the Western powers are unwilling to allow them to cross. Giving a Soviet client state control of half the world's oil supply is UNACCEPTABLE. It allows the Soviets to strangle their economies when and where they want. There will be war between the Western states and Iraq, and if the USSR does ANYTHING but sit there and be quiet, nukes will fly for Moscow.


There would've been another factor: If Iraq took the oil of KSA and Kuwait, or half the world's output, could the West afford to take that much oil off the market by imposing sanctions (or see the infrastructure wrecked for weeks or months trying to get it back)? If the West couldn't, it might've had to negotiate, if it could, the danger of strangulation, hence the need to get it back, wasn't so critical after all. :)
 

bguy

Donor
There would've been another factor: If Iraq took the oil of KSA and Kuwait, or half the world's output, could the West afford to take that much oil off the market by imposing sanctions (or see the infrastructure wrecked for weeks or months trying to get it back)? If the West couldn't, it might've had to negotiate, if it could, the danger of strangulation, hence the need to get it back, wasn't so critical after all. :)

I think you are forgetting about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The US could use that for a while to maintain its oil supply while it was building up the forces necessary to eject Saddam from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but obviously it wouldn't be able to tap the SPR indefinitely so letting him continue to occupy Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would be unacceptable.
 
The US submitting to Soviet nuclear blackmail is simply not going to happen. Doing so would utterly destroy the US's world position as every other nation would now know the Americans will fold whenever the Soviets threaten to break out the nukes. No plausible US president would ever agree to such an abject surrender.
We're talking not about a surrender. We're talking about negotiations, where the Sovjets will try to get the upper hand and dominate the results. They will try to 'convince' their client Iraq to retreat in exchange for concessions in favor of Iraq. Meanwhile warning the US not to escalate the situation by getting personally involved in actual fighting especialy on the ground during the process. That way the hot potatoe lies again with the US. Risk a nucleair exchange while you also can get a result (not the entirely prefered) in negotiations. It isn't about absolute victory in this case. This is what Saddam hoped would have happened in 1990, but the political circumstances had changed immensely by then.
 

bguy

Donor
We're talking not about a surrender. We're talking about negotiations, where the Sovjets will try to get the upper hand and dominate the results. They will try to 'convince' their client Iraq to retreat in exchange for concessions in favor of Iraq. Meanwhile warning the US not to escalate the situation by getting personally involved in actual fighting especialy on the ground during the process. That way the hot potatoe lies again with the US. Risk a nucleair exchange while you also can get a result (not the entirely prefered) in negotiations. It isn't about absolute victory in this case. This is what Saddam hoped would have happened in 1990, but the political circumstances had changed immensely by then.

And why exactly would the US want to negotiate with the Soviets if they are advocating on behalf of Saddam Hussein after he just invaded Saudi Arabia? You typically don't want to make concessions to aggressors because that rewards their aggression.

Nor is the US going to agree to stay out of the initial fighting. It is a lot easier to blast advancing Iraqi troops when they are out in the middle of the desert than when they are marching into Riyadh and Dhahran, and if the US waits too long the Iraqis will overrun the major Saudi ports and airports (making it much more difficult to transport US forces into the region), so US air forces will start engaging Iraqi forces just as soon as possible . (Which if the US has any carriers near the Persian Gulf at the time of the Iraqi invasion could be on the very first day of the Iraqi attack.) Moreover, the US doesn't even need UN approval to assist KSA in a defensive war, so US forces will be enroute to Saudi Arabia just as soon as King Fahd gives the ok. (Which will come immediately if Iraqi troops are invading Saudi Arabia.)

Thus what exactly is the Soviet play here? Do you really think the Soviets are going to threaten the United States with nuclear war because American forces are bombing Iraqi troops in the Saudi desert? Saudi Arabia is one of the United States' biggest red lines. The US is absolutely willing to fight a nuclear war to keep it from being conquered by a hostile power, and the Soviets know this. Thus making any kind of nuclear threat to the Americans means either the Soviets have to back down (humiliating themselves) or it's Armageddon. The Soviets being neither insane nor stupid are not going to put themselves in such a position and thus they will never make any kind of nuclear guarantee for Saddam, and there is nothing else they can do to prevent an American military response against the Iraqi invasion.
 
Iraq had some western made arms but the vast bulk of its arsenal was from the USSR or east block.

"Some" in this case being huge swathes of key components of such organizations as it's air defense and missile forces. The Iraqis biochemical programs were basically created via dual-use western technology. And that's only direct aid: I'm not even talking about more indirect means of providing armaments, like how arms purchases Iraq made from the east block were sometimes financed with western loans and other forms of financial aide.

Largely because of Iran being a mutual enemy.

Contacts between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the west well pre-date the Iran-Iraq War.

Well, as long as the USSR was intact it served to tie down a lot of western conventional strength in Europe. The USSR long prevented the US from eliminating Castro's Cuba, so it could've deterred the US from attacking Iraq if it chose. Although it may have opposed aggression in principle, it still could've prevented war--no use getting back oil if you're nuked.

American agreement in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis to not invade Cuba was a product of Soviet forces, both conventional and nuclear, being stationed in-country at the time. No such forces were stationed in Iraq and Saddam would have never permitted them.

If Iraq had taken half the world's oil, and became heavily dependent on Moscow for protection, that could've given the USSR enormous potential leverage over the West and Japan via Iraq.

For the Soviets, it's vastly less riskier to just let the conflict play out, since they still get most of the profits without any of the risk.
 
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So, in the hypothetical situation, where Saddam has invaded Saudi Arabia and successfully occupied the oilfields, how exactly do you stop him from tanking the World economy? I mean the argument so far is that its unacceptable to have him hold what amounts to half of the worlds oil supplies but isn't the issue decided once he actually does so?
Saddam can simply destroy the fields ahead of any U.S sponsored counter-attack which would cripple the Global economy for months or years whilst forcing the West to turn to the Soviets, Iranians etc to make up the oil difference. In addition, the U.S forces 'saving' the Saudi Royal Families Regime is really going to shred their credibility and make them look like a complete puppet of Washington especially to their own people ( with inherently unpredictable results). Finally, if the USA decides to actually go ahead and remove Saddam then the resulting power vacuum is going to potentially open the door to the Soviets, Iranians etc selling heavy weapons to the various Iraqi factions and turning the occupation into an OTL like quagmire or at worst a Vietnam MK II.
 

Deleted member 67076

Id be really interested to see if anyone has any comments on what other diasporas form in Iraq and their impact.

Filipinos, Japanese, Yugoslavs, Egyptians, Bulgarians, and more were all guest workers in Iraq. Its likely some would stay, and more would come after the fall of Communism should Iraq's economy maintain stable and growing (after the inevitable period of redistribution).
 
The best option for Saddam would be if some Wahhabi fanatics seized power in Saudi-Arabia and he furthermore was shrewd enough to put out the word quietly, that he'll be looking to tread a neutral path between NATO and WP in the future. Then he might very well be able to invade without intervention.
 

bguy

Donor
So, in the hypothetical situation, where Saddam has invaded Saudi Arabia and successfully occupied the oilfields, how exactly do you stop him from tanking the World economy? I mean the argument so far is that its unacceptable to have him hold what amounts to half of the worlds oil supplies but isn't the issue decided once he actually does so?
Saddam can simply destroy the fields ahead of any U.S sponsored counter-attack which would cripple the Global economy for months or years whilst forcing the West to turn to the Soviets, Iranians etc to make up the oil difference.

Well a lot of the Saudi oil fields are pretty far south from the Iraqi border. (i.e. the Ghawar field for instance, which I believe was the Saudi's biggest oil field at the time, is southwest of Dhahran (the likely main US base in Saudi Arabia.) It's going to be pretty difficult for the Iraqis to get to Ghawar (hundreds of miles to the south) with the US Air Force and Navy bombing them every step of the way. (Which is why the US will commit it's forces against an Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia immediately rather than standing by and doing nothing until the Iraqis have already occupied the oil fields.)

But even in the worse case scenario where the Iraqis manage somehow to advance hundreds of miles across a desert while under a blizzard of US air strikes and successfully occupy the oil fields, it's still better for the US to bite the bullet and drive the Iraqis out even at the destruction of those oil wells. A year or two of economic pain while the oil fields are being restored is infinitely better than letting Saddam Hussein permanently control half of the world's oil supply.

In addition, the U.S forces 'saving' the Saudi Royal Families Regime is really going to shred their credibility and make them look like a complete puppet of Washington especially to their own people ( with inherently unpredictable results).

The Saudis faced the exact same issue in 1990, and they still decided to allow 500,000 western troops into their country. If the King was ok with bringing in a massive number of western troops just on the threat of an Iraqi invasion, he will certainly allow western troops when faced with the reality of such an invasion.

Finally, if the USA decides to actually go ahead and remove Saddam then the resulting power vacuum is going to potentially open the door to the Soviets, Iranians etc selling heavy weapons to the various Iraqi factions and turning the occupation into an OTL like quagmire or at worst a Vietnam MK II.

The US doesn't have to occupy Iraq to eject Saddam from Kuwait and KSA. (See Operation Desert Storm.)
 
No basically only KSA, Syria, the US and European states wanted him out. Jordan quietly backed Iraq and so did many Palestinians and others. Most of the world went along with the US and KSA because by then the USSR was washed up, leaving the US the only superpower with virtual carte blanche.

Er, no. Directly participating and supporting combat operations were the nations of Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Spain, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, a Mujaheddin contingent representing Afghanistan as well as the US itself. Indirect support came from Japan, Germany, China and the USSR. And note that the REASON Japan and Germany could not contribute forces was their post-WWII Constitutions not lack of commitment. Further China offered to deploy several divisions of air and ground forces IF the US would provide transportation while the USSR, (Russia specifically as you'll note several nominally WP forces are already involved) offered air and ground forces as well. Both were firmly but polity refused on political a political basis. (The Arab coalition partners did not want Chinese or Russian troops on the ground)
Palestinians that 'supported' Iraq were few and not very vocal and that's understandable given the Iraq had an active program to drive Palestinians out of Kuwait through intimidation and harassment.

And yes if you noted it is likely that one of the Mujaheddin fighters from Afghanistan was probably Osama Bin Laden as he specifically cites the Gulf War and the KSA governments allowance of 'foreign' troops into the country as the catalyst for the creation of Al Qaeda. He was promptly sent out of the country before the Saudi government had to officially "notice" him and he always resented that the government didn't "trust" that God would protect them. (Which is why it was always silly to try and hint at connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda since they hated each other more than the "infidels")

It is a known fact that Iraq had almost no support, (certainly no active support) and that the international community actually came together in a mass on a scale not seen since WWII. Iran was litterally the ONLY nation Iraq could attack without immediate and strong opposition from around the world. Having said that it is likely that Saddam got the idea that since he'd had huge support for attacking Iran that such support would continue if he invaded Kuwait but the actual "logic" of that process is and was highly lacking in any form of backing.

Randy
 
The only viable PODs for this scenario are, either, Khomeini fails to seize power during the Iranian Revolution and Islamic liberals and secular democrats takeover, preventing the purge of the Iranian military’s senior officer staff. Or, al-Bakr gets wise to Saddam’s coup attempt against him, and arrests him before he has the chance to execute it, possibly to be followed by the planned unification of Iraq and Syria.

With the former — while Saddam was an egomaniac with a lust for glory — he wasn’t a suicidal one, and he knew fully well that so long as the Iranian military seemed intact to its pre-revolutionary strength (and especially with U.S. diplomatic support), any war would result in a massacre for the Iraqis.

With the latter, while we can’t know for sure how al-Bakr and his circle would have reacted given the same OTL circumstances, a union with Syria as was planned would have undoubtably made the new state vulnerable to a possible two-front war, facing both Iran and the Israelis. It’s unlikely that he, or presumably anyone else saner than Saddam, would have risked something like that.
 
So, in the hypothetical situation, where Saddam has invaded Saudi Arabia and successfully occupied the oilfields, how exactly do you stop him from tanking the World economy? I mean the argument so far is that its unacceptable to have him hold what amounts to half of the worlds oil supplies but isn't the issue decided once he actually does so?
Saddam can simply destroy the fields ahead of any U.S sponsored counter-attack which would cripple the Global economy for months or years whilst forcing the West to turn to the Soviets, Iranians etc to make up the oil difference. In addition, the U.S forces 'saving' the Saudi Royal Families Regime is really going to shred their credibility and make them look like a complete puppet of Washington especially to their own people ( with inherently unpredictable results). Finally, if the USA decides to actually go ahead and remove Saddam then the resulting power vacuum is going to potentially open the door to the Soviets, Iranians etc selling heavy weapons to the various Iraqi factions and turning the occupation into an OTL like quagmire or at worst a Vietnam MK II.

Let me point out that the Saudi government has been well known to depend on the US and the west for military support because they can't trust or organize their own military. EVERYONE knows this is the area/country and they still haven't been inconvenienced by this fact. Saddam was well aware that the US would not allow him into Saudi which is why he went for what he though was a 'softer' target in Kuwait. I don't understand how he could not see that being worrisome to Saudi or how he missed that the US and Kuwait had had some serious dealings during the Iran/Iraq war that were not secret in any way. Again Iran was the ONLY acceptable target for Iraq and pretty much everyone had made that clear to Saddam but he ignored it.

While at the time Saudi and the Arab League feared Saddam's removal it was not on the basis of increased Soviet influence in the area, it was the fear of increased religious extremism such as had engulfed Afghanistan after the Soviet pull out that made the coalition leadership pull the US forces up short of taking Baghdad. (And yes it was quite "interesting" in Riyadh that night* :) )

The Saudi government even tried to offer US military members in country a 'bonus' of $5,000 US dollars per month in country to 'defend' them which was refused in a non-polite manner. No one is going to be surprised if the west comes to their defense.

Randy
* Yes I was there for the whole thing. I was in-country 4 months ahead of "Desert Shield" as part of a multi-national team that was busy repairing and replacing the mostly junked Saudi weapons systems they'd bought during the Iran/Iraq war and had let fall apart which is par for the course for them.
 
"Some" in this case being huge swathes of key components of such organizations as it's air defense and missile forces.

Yes the F-1s and KARI. But the bulk of its weapons were still Soviet/east block. KARI may have been French built but it provided the MIG-23 what it needed--an IADS.

Contacts between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the west well pre-date the Iran-Iraq War.

Of course because Britain once held it. But the Soviet connection became far more important.

American agreement in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis to not invade Cuba was a product of Soviet forces, both conventional and nuclear, being stationed in-country at the time. No such forces were stationed in Iraq and Saddam would have never permitted them.

There were plenty of advisors and others.
 
I think you are forgetting about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The US could use that for a while to maintain its oil supply while it was building up the forces necessary to eject Saddam from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but obviously it wouldn't be able to tap the SPR indefinitely so letting him continue to occupy Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would be unacceptable.


The SPR might suffice to meet US requirements for x number of months but what about Europe and Japan? Also, what if the oilfields were blown up or otherwise wrecked before they were retaken? Would the SPR and other reserves suffice until they were pumping again?
 
The SPR might suffice to meet US requirements for x number of months but what about Europe and Japan? Also, what if the oilfields were blown up or otherwise wrecked before they were retaken? Would the SPR and other reserves suffice until they were pumping again?

Sucks for Europe and Japan, but its still better to rip the bandaid off quickly.

Of course, its not going to get to that, since I very much doubt that Saddam has the logistics to get that far before being forced to halt for some period of time, during which the 18th Airborne Corps and USMC is going to get reinforced by a heavy corps out of Europe and probably some NG units from the states. And it'll get a bit rough for the USSR when one of their viable methods of earning foreign currency sees a complete thrashing by Western gear...
 
There were plenty of advisers and others.

Actually there weren't which was a major peeve for the USSR. Saddam refused to allow a large adviser force in-country and more often than not he sent military members to other Arab nations for training if it had to be done. One reason his military was considered one of the 'best' in the region was specifically because he didn't depend on foreign advisers and support but insisted operations and maintenance be done in Iraq by Iraqi personnel. His troops knew how to operate and maintain their equipment on their own from their own resources which was unusual for a Middle Eastern nation at the time. A couple of the other nations that did that were Iran and Kuwait so that should also tell you something.

Randy
 
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