WI: The US invades Iran in 2003 instead of Iraq

It would be bad.

Iraq 2003 population: 26 million

Iran 2003 population: 68 million

Also, Iran could and would close the Straits of Hormuz, cutting everyone else's oil supplies. The entire oil-consuming world, and especially the Saudis, would be very, very angry with the US. There'd be zero other countries in the "Coalition of the Willing". On the contrary, they'd all be hitting the US with trade sanctions to try and make them stop.

Worst case: other nuclear club members (Pakistan? France? ) or wannabees (South Africa?) covertly help Iran finish their nukes, to permanently deter the Americans from screwing around with the Gulf region.
 
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It would be bad.

Iraq 2003 population: 26 million

Iran 2003 population: 68 million

Also, Iran could and would close the Straits of Hormuz, cutting everyone else's oil supplies. The entire oil-consuming world, and especially the Saudis, would be very, very angry with the US. There'd be zero other countries in the "Coalition of the Willing". On the contrary, they'd all be hitting the US with trade sanctions to try and make them stop.

Worst case: other nuclear club members (Pakistan? France? ) or wannabees (South Africa?) covertly help Iran finish their nukes, to permanently deter the Americans from screwing around with the Gulf region.
No. The dominant naval power in the Gulf is the US, Iran can't close the straights. Two- Saudi Arabia will never in a million years ever support Iran and will bitch slap with oil sanctions any Western nation that supports an Iranian nuke. Do you realize how much Arab nations HATE Iran? Let me put it this way, they work with Israeli Mosad against Iran, and when Arabs prefer to work with Israel to weaken you, you are absolutely hated. Pakistan?! Pakistan feels threatened by Iran, is not an ally, though not as anti-Iranian as Saudi Arabia. Iran gets their ass kicked in the WAR, though like any US intervention in the last 25 years- there is difference between winning the war against a state, and actually winning an occupation. Though Iranians tend to be more likely to start rebuilding (more like Germany and Japan, than Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya)
 
Restore The Lion and Sun! While it would involve some slogging, the Iranian people don't want to be ruled by theocrats any more.
They felt let down by obomba. We would be liberators!
 
It would be a complete and total disaster. The Iranian Government is much more stable and entrenched than Saddam's ever was. Additionally, the facts that Mad Bad Rabbit laid out would make the invasion an unmitigated catastrophe. This debacle would be further enhanced by the same incompetent leadership that made such a mess of Iraq (Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Bremmer).
 
It would be a complete and total disaster. The Iranian Government is much more stable and entrenched than Saddam's ever was. Additionally, the facts that Mad Bad Rabbit laid out would make the invasion an unmitigated catastrophe. This debacle would be further enhanced by the same incompetent leadership that made such a mess of Iraq (Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Bremmer).
Mad Bad Rabbit?
 
I wouldn't even want to imagine how many people would be killed :frown:
Why do this anyhow, it would be hard to cook the intel to say Iran did 9/11, even for Rumsfeld et al. It would be a blatant war of aggression.

Occupation would pretty much be impossible, it's substantially larger than Iraq and as pointed out there are far more people to run an insurgency with. The US Military said what was given to them for Iraq by the government (men and equipment) was not enough to do the job properly, and it showed. It could not defeat a determined guerilla enemy. But that was all there was to give without conscription.

With Iran? The US might actually be chased out of the country altogether. It would either be a humiliating defeat, or a quagmire of lives and money as the US is forced to reinstitute conscription which will be a domestic disaster (imagine young people being told they had to go die in Iran because 'we don't like Iran very much'.) Possibly it could end up being both a la Vietnam.

Final forecast?

  • tens of thousands of US dead, potentially more than a million Iranian dead
  • Bush gets impeached between 2005 and 2007 if he somehow manages to win 2004, Dems win even harder in 2006
  • America torches relations with every friendly nation, including the coalition of the willing
  • Possible indictments handed down from ICC for Bush officials
  • Ignominious retreat
 
I wouldn't even want to imagine how many people would be killed :frown:
Why do this anyhow, it would be hard to cook the intel to say Iran did 9/11, even for Rumsfeld et al. It would be a blatant war of aggression.

Occupation would pretty much be impossible, it's substantially larger than Iraq and as pointed out there are far more people to run an insurgency with. The US Military said what was given to them for Iraq by the government (men and equipment) was not enough to do the job properly, and it showed. It could not defeat a determined guerilla enemy. But that was all there was to give without conscription.

With Iran? The US might actually be chased out of the country altogether. It would either be a humiliating defeat, or a quagmire of lives and money as the US is forced to reinstitute conscription which will be a domestic disaster (imagine young people being told they had to go die in Iran because 'we don't like Iran very much'.) Possibly it could end up being both a la Vietnam.

Final forecast?

  • tens of thousands of US dead, potentially more than a million Iranian dead
  • Bush gets impeached between 2005 and 2007 if he somehow manages to win 2004, Dems win even harder in 2006
  • America torches relations with every friendly nation, including the coalition of the willing
  • Possible indictments handed down from ICC for Bush officials
  • Ignominious retreat
Would it be logical to assume that a terrorist organization similar to ISIL could take shape in Iran?
 
No. The dominant naval power in the Gulf is the US, Iran can't close the straights.


This isn't 1980. The Iranians have enough submarines and mines to deny shipping. Even if the USN blows them out of the water, the Iranians also have long-range artillery. Unless the US occupies and fully controls all Iranian turf within 200 km of the Straits, you're gonna have supertankers hit with rockets. The price of oil will immediately double, as CNN shows nonstop loop of burning multimillion dollar oil slick. Lloyds or whoever they insure with will demand tankers not transit the area until the conflict is over.

Two- Saudi Arabia will never in a million years ever support Iran and will bitch slap with oil sanctions any Western nation that supports an Iranian nuke.

If the French sell them centrifuges or plutonium, they aren't going to tell the Saudis, are they? Just like they didn't tell them they sold nuclear weapons technology to the Israelis.

Pakistan?! Pakistan feels threatened by Iran, is not an ally, though not as anti-Iranian as Saudi Arabia.

In OTL 2003 Pakistan met with Iran to discuss sharing nuclear weapons technology, so they're at least frenemies.
 

Wallet

Banned
In 2003, Iraq was a rogue state. Saddam didn't have many friends and was pissing a lot of people off. He did claim to have WMD. The world did remember the invasion of Kuwait in 1991. None of this justifies an invasions, but the world wasn't surprised.

Iran is not Iraq. Iran is a very large and developed nation. They have relations with almost the entire world except the US. They have a stable economy abd currency and a strong alliance with Russia. While Saddam mocked the US on 9/11 they sent condolences and offered aid in the invasion of Afghanistan. They never claimed to have WMD nor would they ever give it to AL Quida that wanted to kill Shia. The whole argument with Iraq was that they had WMDs and terrorists could get their hands on them.
 

Towelie

Banned
Why?

There were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iran, nor did Iran start getting uppity about nukes before the crazies got into power 3 years later. Bush did not believe in attacking countries solely because he disliked their form of government. Diplomatic opposition and a fucking invasion are two very different things.
 
Why?

There were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iran, nor did Iran start getting uppity about nukes before the crazies got into power 3 years later. Bush did not believe in attacking countries solely because he disliked their form of government. Diplomatic opposition and a fucking invasion are two very different things.

There were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq either, but that didn't stop Bush. The difference is it was riskier to bully the bigger kid in the region when you can go for the smaller kid.
 
Why?

There were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iran, nor did Iran start getting uppity about nukes before the crazies got into power 3 years later. Bush did not believe in attacking countries solely because he disliked their form of government. Diplomatic opposition and a fucking invasion are two very different things.

There were more reasons to be hostile towards Iran, albeit mostly related to enmity from the Hostage Crisis and the decade following. All of that said, I've come to believe that the main reason for the Iraq invasion was to rebuild the place as a model for liberal democracy in the Middle East as an alternative to religious zealots and secular dictators. The latter were the uncomfortable allies we were hoping to phase out, so attacking a regime run by the former doesn't fit the strategy well.
 
Would it be logical to assume that a terrorist organization similar to ISIL could take shape in Iran?

No. Not in 2003, not now, not under any conceivable circumstance.

The big fault line in Iran is that between those wanting greater democratic involvement and those reluctant to move too quickly along that route. Neither side has the motivation to disrupt the situation; the former wish to build on it, while the latter wish to maintain it. Neither wish to overturn it.

Exporting terror and involving itself in the affairs of neighbours has largely followed the route of protecting Shia interests in nearby regions through militia.
 

Towelie

Banned
There were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq either, but that didn't stop Bush. The difference is it was riskier to bully the bigger kid in the region when you can go for the smaller kid.
Saddam praised the 9/11 attacks and modeled himself as the paragon of Sunni Islam during the 90s. He also established radical universities that ended up indoctrinating much of what would later form AQI.

Iran meanwhile was a Shiite nation.

These are two very different situations. One of which is at least mildly plausible and the other is not at all plausible. The Fedayeen Saddam were formed using foreign islamic radicals, after all. I mean, Bin Laden may not have loved Saddam, but the idea that there was a tie there wasn't completely irrational.
 
Restore The Lion and Sun! While it would involve some slogging, the Iranian people don't want to be ruled by theocrats any more.
They felt let down by obomba. We would be liberators!

I hate to break it to you, but that's not even close to being the case. Iranians have differences of opinion over the general course of development, how much power each of the various branches should have, but there isn't any desire whatsoever for significant disruption.

Talk of being liberators in an invasion of Iran is total nonsense.
 
I hate to break it to you, but that's not even close to being the case. Iranians have differences of opinion over the general course of development, how much power each of the various branches should have, but there isn't any desire whatsoever for significant disruption.

Talk of being liberators in an invasion of Iran is total nonsense.

I think that's sarcasm. The "Greeted as liberators" line is kind of the stuff of legends, after all.
 
I think that's sarcasm. The "Greeted as liberators" line is kind of the stuff of legends, after all.

You could be right. On the other hand, I've come across so many, um, misinformed opinions on Iran that I can never be too sure.

You know, for a journalist, I can sometimes still take what people say at face value. It's embarrassing.
 
You could be right. On the other hand, I've come across so many, um, misinformed opinions on Iran that I can never be too sure.

You know, for a journalist, I can sometimes still take what people say at face value. It's embarrassing.

Nobody's more gullible than a cynic.
 
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