WI: No Soviet Support For Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War

Let's say that the Soviet Union is less willing to support Iraq's naked aggression in the Iran-Iraq war and does not resume exports of arms to Iraq when the Iranians managed to gain the upper hand in the war in 1982.

Per usual in the Communist Block, there will be a split between those more loyal to Moscow and the more independent minded regimes - China, North Korea, Romania and Yugoslavia will be potential sources of Soviet-designed weaponry for Iraq. (Though North Korea may not sell - they seem to have been committed to Iran in OTL.)

What effects might this have?

Some thoughts:

*Relations between the Soviets and Iranians are better, and it may mean the Tudeh party avoids being crushed by the regime in 1983 and thus continues playing the part of a loyal opposition. I'm not sure what effect this would have. While the revolutionary regime's relatively benign attitude towards Tudeh between 1979 and 1983 allowed Tudeh to gain much ground, all of the levers of power in Iran were in the hands of the theocrats.

*Without Soviet aid to Iraq, France becomes Saddam's main supplier. That could have interesting effects if Saddam survives and invades Kuwait as he did in OTL.

*If the USSR isn't flooding Iraq with weapons, how well do they hold out? And might fears of an Iraqi collapse mean that the Gulf Arabs get drawn into sending "volunteers" or even regular military units to support Iraq? And might the US be driven to flood Iraq with their weapons to replace what the Soviets would have sent in OTL?

*The Soviets seem to have received significant dollar income from their arms exports to Iraq during the war, I've not been able to find solid numbers for exactly how much Iraq bought (though when the Soviet Union fell 8-10 billion USD worth of Iraqi military debts were still outstanding) it is possible that the lack of Soviet exports to Iraq would push their overall trade balance into a slight deficit.

*In OTL, the Iraqi regime often blamed its own incompetence on their Soviet equipment. This may have been a contributing factor in the Soviets resuming arms exports to Iraq. In a situation where Iraq is getting only second-rate Soviet-designed equipment from China, Romania and Yugoslavia (meaning Iraq has none of the first-rate stuff which the Soviets only made available after 1982) can the Soviets calm the nerves of their other arms customers? And might the Soviets feel pushed into exporting more of their first-rate weapons systems to more customers?

*The Soviet support for Iraq made them much more popular with the conservative Arab states, in some cases (those of Oman and the UAE) opening diplomatic relations for the first time. If the Soviets don't support Iraq, the Gulf States will be much more strongly aligned with the US. Given the Cold War was due to end soon, this may not have much impact, but it may be that without the aid to Iraq, Post-Soviet Russia wouldn't enjoy the good relations it does with Saudi Arabia.

*If the Soviets don't support Iraq, does that mean that the West sees Iran as being pro-Soviet by default?

fasquardon
 
Any thoughts?

I'm particularly interested if anyone thinks Iran could be allowed to win in this scenario - my gut says no (OTL pretty much the whole world sided against Iran), but then, my gut doesn't have the deepest knowledge about the political dynamics or understand the military details - certainly the Soviets were panicked after 1986 in OTL.

And if Iran does break Iraq, what happens then? My guess is that falls into a civil war as Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Arabs sponsor a Sunni insurrection in central Iraq and the Iranians support some sort of Shia/Kurd dominated government. Or maybe Iraq de facto splits into 3 (a Sunni enemy of Iran, a Shia ally of Iran and a Kurdish ally of Iran).

fasquardon
 
I don't think Iran would win, Iraq was supported not only by soviets, but also by the west.

I agree, but there are some counterpoints to that which makes me uncertain in my agreement:

1) The lions share of support for Iraq came from the Soviets and their close allies (loans, weapons) and the Gulf Arabs (loans). Western support was in comparison minor, so losing Soviet support hurts alot. Especially since the Gulf Arabs did not and cannot provide much in the way of the weapons directly - so the Iraqis need to find other suppliers to spend the Gulf Arab money. Even if China, Yugoslavia, Romania and France (the major weapons suppliers who might still sell to Iraq if Soviet support is lacking) want to provide Iraq with the weapons they need, can they deliver enough quantity to replace Soviet support?

2) Even if the other OTL major suppliers can sell more to Iraq, it will be just that - selling - none of them can afford to offer the profligate loans that the Soviets did and certainly they won't be offering Iraq the sorts of discounts on the list price of their equipment that the Soviets could (though I'm not sure if they did this during the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviets commonly offered their arms at discounts - in the 1960s Soviet arms exports to Afghanistan were discounted by a whopping 95% for example), so Iraq will be short of many, many billions of USD worth of equipment that they had in OTL.

3) The US gave plenty of aid to Iraq during the war (for example satellite intel, siding with Iraq during the "tanker war"), but the Americans were scrupulous to avoid getting too deeply involved and all their actions had enough plausible deniability that they could convincingly present themselves as neutrals. The US is really the only actor that can step in to replace the Soviet aid to Iraq, but it isn't clear that the US would, especially if the Soviets are more neutral in the conflict.

Now, to counter point (3), it may be that seeing the Soviets abandon their ally might make the US decide that now is the time to swoop in and make a friend with Saddam, and American loans and weapons (probably provided through European and Gulf Arab intermediaries to maintain that plausible deniability) might be made available in significant amounts in the hopes that this will permanently pull Saddam out of the Soviet orbit.

fasquardon
 
The US public HATED Iran and had no reason in 1983 to hate Iraq. If the Iranians looked like they were going to win without the Soviets giving Iraq support there would have been more and more pressure from the US public to step in and supply them ourselves. My guess is that it eventually would be enough to tip the balance , particularly if it looks like Iran would take parts of Iraq.
 
The US public HATED Iran and had no reason in 1983 to hate Iraq. If the Iranians looked like they were going to win without the Soviets giving Iraq support there would have been more and more pressure from the US public to step in and supply them ourselves. My guess is that it eventually would be enough to tip the balance , particularly if it looks like Iran would take parts of Iraq.

True, I'd not thought of the vote-winning potential of sticking it to Iran...

I suspect that the US would be slower to react than the Soviets though. (They've got to get over their distaste for the Iraqi regime, particularly since only a few years before it was seen as a Soviet lapdog, and it would take time to overcome the institutional commitment to staying out as much as possible - after all, in OTL the Soviets managed to be quicker off the mark in offering to reflag tankers during the 1984-1988 tanker war.)

I wonder if the Iranians can take Basra before the US overcame its momentum and started intervening?

And what happens in the Gulf War if Iraq is aligned with the US (however loosely)? I suspect not much changes... Saddam is still Saddam and the US will still like the Kuwaitis better than the Iraqis.

fasquardon
 
True, I'd not thought of the vote-winning potential of sticking it to Iran...

I suspect that the US would be slower to react than the Soviets though. (They've got to get over their distaste for the Iraqi regime, particularly since only a few years before it was seen as a Soviet lapdog, and it would take time to overcome the institutional commitment to staying out as much as possible - after all, in OTL the Soviets managed to be quicker off the mark in offering to reflag tankers during the 1984-1988 tanker war.)

I wonder if the Iranians can take Basra before the US overcame its momentum and started intervening?

And what happens in the Gulf War if Iraq is aligned with the US (however loosely)? I suspect not much changes... Saddam is still Saddam and the US will still like the Kuwaitis better than the Iraqis.

fasquardon

Maybe, but the US really hated Iran. Iraq being a Soviet lapdog might have mattered to some of the policy wonks, maybe, but the vast majority of the voting public couldn't have located Iraq on a map. In fact I doubt very much a majority of Americans even heard of the country in 1983. It was just another Third World nation at the time. About as many people were as interested in Iraq as in Mozambique or Botswana.
 
One way or another the Iranians weren't going to be allowed to conquer Iraq (which was the right decision, creating a contiguous Shiite bloc of Iran, Iraq, and Syria that could project power into Lebanon, Israel, and the Gulf States would have been a disaster for the Middle East).

However, it is likely that the Iranians do quite a bit better. The came very close to taking al-Basrah in OTL a couple of times, and Soviet-supplied aircraft and helicopters were critical to the Iraqi defensive effort. I can see them taking the city without that.
 
If the War really turn sour for Iraq, (As say taking Iraq's main port, and some of Iraq's largest oil fields, Basra.) could Sadaam be coup out of power? Or killed for the failures of the War with the Iranians?
 
Under these circumstances I would expect a lot of private citizens of the Gulf States to begin to develop a deep interest in the cause of the Nicaraguan Contras.
 
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