Hypothetical: What would have happened if Saddam had of accepted exile?

[korn469]

Bush told Saddam and his sons that they must leave Iraq and gave them a two day ultimatum. In retrospect, it looks like Saddam hasn't came out of this as a courageous martyr, but instead as an absentee leader of one of the most incompetant militaries on Earth. Besides the Fedayeen the Iraqi armed forces, Republican Guard, and Special Republican Guard included looked completely powerless to perform even a single coordinated action. It doesn't appear that the Iraqi Air Force even launched a single sortie in the entire war. The only had one successful missile strike on Kuwait, and that was about all. There will be no talk of Saddam's last stand, because there is really nothing to inspire future generations in his behavior.

So in retrospect, what if he had of decided to pack his bags and retire to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or hell even the French Riviera. What would have been the potential political fallout of such a move? What do you think would have happened? Could the Ba'ath party have held onto power? Would Iraq have turned into a democracy? Would the Coalition still of had a legitimate reason to send troops across the border? What is your take on this?

[Tuberski]

The Ba'ath party would be in power, we wouldn't have invaded.

Nothing else would have been changed in the country.

ACK!

[chequita guevara]

We were still going to invade. The question is whether or not they would have resisted.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
We were still going to invade. The question is whether or not they would have resisted.

So, you mean that if Saddam had left they would have resisted?

ACK!

[Urban Ranger]

If a foreign country invades, why won't they resist?

[alva]

They would have invaded the country that gave asylum to Hussein (ohh, hoping it would be France of course )

[orange]

invasion would go as planned. No way we back out because one man leaves. We'd cite some bs reason to invade...ie a certain general hasn't left, or 'he really hasn't left, he's just playing hide and seek' or 'weapons of mass destruction still exist' or 'whoever takes over will be worse', etc.

[MichaeltheGreat]

It was made very clear that Saddam had to go into exile to avoid war, however, the Iraqis also had to accept occupation by US forces and removal of the Baath party from leadership, disarmament, etc.

The only differences would be in the casualties on each side, and that probably not much in the long run.

[Joseph]

Yes, we would have still gone in, shooting or otherwise to disarm the Army. All of Saddam people would still be arrested. I don't see how we could have left him alive, because he would be sending in his goon squad every other week to cause problem. In the long run the way we did it is properly better, the other would have been a disaster.

[GePap]

Well, would Iraqi TV have had to tell evryone that Saddam had left, or what?

I have no idea what type of internal disturbances would have broken out in Iraq once the news that Saddam and his boys (and probalby many other high ranking gov. members) had left. It might have gotten ugly, and then the coolition would have moved in.....

[Urban Ranger]

Not that it's not all messed up now, as the US forces has failed to maintain peace in Baghdad and other cities.

[korn469]

I actually think that if Saddam, his sons, and most of the other higher ups had of left that it could have went one of two ways. Lower members of the Ba'ath party maintain control of the military and stay in power, with something like "we've seen the light, we'll be good now" and then the US invades with about the same outcome of the current war. Or everything goes to hell, and local authorities assert themselves, then to keep the Turks out of a self declared kurdistand, and to keep the rest of iraq together we invade and encounter even less of an organized military responce than we did now, but much more west bank style insurgency, with three main sources of ideological contention being:

1) General anti-american/anti-israeli hatred.
2) Iraqi nationalism. Saddam apparently lacked the charisma of either hitler or even Usama, and nobody was about to die for him unless they had to. However, if he was gone and people were fighting for their country, for their independence against aggression (instead of "liberation") then I think instead of smiling villages, I think we would have seen far more attacks by a completely localized Iraqi resistance fighting in the name of freedom for Iraq.
3) Increased validity of a Jyhad. Bush gets what he said he wanted, rid of Saddam, then he sends in the troops anyways, and groups like Al qaeda can say "see they are out to destroy Islam and kill our feel Arabs, then steal their oil" and this is the real reason why the Americans are here.

Also without Saddam and a central regime to topple, we wouldn't have any real command and control targets to shock and awe, nor would we be able to say that we were making progress against a dictator. Unless we occupied all of the villages our rolling through an area really wouldn't be securing it.

In many ways I'm afraid if we pursue the same half assed nation building techniques that we did in Afganistan that this whole thing will get real messy real quick. I don't think a weak central government like Karzai's will work in Iraq, hell I'm not sure if it's working in Afghanistan. We need to do this right, and I really hope we will.