WI Saddam had attacked Saudi Arabia...

All of it??? It's a big place, mainly desolate, and equipped with first rate weaponry taken from several nations (and training not too bad either).

I can't really see Iraqi armoured columns or air power being able to counter Saudi F15s, Tornado F3s, Tornado attack aircraft, etc., and the Saudi army, even if outnumbering them (if they could afford to risk sending lots outside Iraq). Nor being able to do much about the Saudi navy.

It'd probably get bogged down into and then Saudi's 'friends' come to help very quickly.
 
Be fair, it doesn't need to conquer the Saudis, it needs to hit the oil depots, turn them into fireballs that take months to extinguish and drive the price of petrol up with a warning to the West that this could happen again if they don't treat Saddam with respect.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Why?

Saddam attacked Kuwait because he thought he'd get away with it, a tiny country, dangerously close to a 'rogue state'. Saddam thought if he annexed the lands, (and, more importantly, the oils), of Kuwait either, no-one would care, or if they did care, they would tolerate it because an Iraqi-controlled Kuwait would be more stable than an Iranian-controlled Kuwait.

It was an arrogant miscalculation.

But Saddam wasn't so arrogant that he thought people would kowtow to his whim if he were to invade the largest country in the Middle East. Sure, in a military conflict between just the two countries, Iraq would easily win, but Saddam would have to be stupid to believe that no-one would come to the Saudis' aid.
 
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