WI: No Shia insurgency in Iraq post-2003?

[NotYetRegistered]

What if, instead of deciding to fight the people who removed their hated dictator and essentially gave them the power, there is no Shia insurgency in Iraq? How would that influence things?

 

[redlightning]

It would be difficult to prevent this. Perhaps if US forces agree to pay and keep the Iraqi military and police intact to do its job as intended instead of creating a situation with thousands of former armed personnel on the streets seeking revenge for it.

Preventing the insurgency does not give rise to Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Allies are probably able to create a provisional government faster by 2005. US forces slowly start to withdrawal and leave a permanent force behind to train. Most troops are gone by 2006.

The Arab Spring will still happen, Iraq will be limited to protests, but Syria will still break up into civil war and some of those elements spill over into Iraq. Permanent US forces there could help prevent its significant rise and contain it within Syria's borders.

 

[TinyTartar]

One way that this could possibly happen is if Muqtada al-Sadr was to meet with an unfortunate accident years ago due to Saddam being the dick that he was.

Muqtada was extremely powerful and rabidly anti-West, with likely ties to the Iranians. He still is, actually, and threatened to use terror attacks on the West if the US was to give the Kurds and Sunnis direct aid to help fight ISIS. There were other Shiite clerics that were noticeably more pro American but not nearly as militant, although respected still. Sistani, for example, was not nearly as bad.

Granted, this won't do everything, but if the Shiites in Iraq are to follow in greater numbers a more moderate cleric, that would help things quite a bit.

 

[ChazMo]

It would be difficult to prevent this. Perhaps if US forces agree to pay and keep the Iraqi military and police intact to do its job as intended instead of creating a situation with thousands of former armed personnel on the streets seeking revenge for it.

There's this widespread assumption that Iraq's descent into turmoil could have been averted if Saddam's terror apparatus had been retained for temporary policing purposes. I seriously don't buy it. The Mukhabarat operating under a new set of masters and a 'secular' mandate is still the Mukhabarat, and hanging a few key officials isn't going to change that. The coalition was bad enough IOTL promoting itself to the Iraqis as a liberating force, only the Shia now have the Yankee oppressors working in direct cahoots with the remnants of the Hussein regime - all the more reason to take up arms. This is a recipe for disaster.