Apropos of yesterday's post about Tucker Carlson vs Ralph Peters and Max Boot, let's imagine the United States never liberated Iraq. What would the Middle East look like?
President Bush basically ends the war with victory in Afghanistan.
-In 2017 American forces are still in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida.
-The 'Arab Spring' still happens. It happened organically within the Arab world and independently of anything the U.S. did.
-Mubarak is still out in Egypt with the same Brotherhood to military rule we have today.
-The Iran situation is unchanged. They are still working on nukes. Iran is still partnered with Hezbollah.
-Re Israel, there is every reason to think the 2002, 2006, 2009, and 2014 wars still happen.
-Because we have the Arab Spring we still have the rise of ISIS.
Really, the great question here is what does Saddam do? We think the most likely Saddam scenario is:
-Sanctions lifted.
-when the Arab Spring comes Iraq is plunged into a massive civil war like Syria but on a larger scale.
-Iran backs the Shia in Iraq.
-The Gulf States back the Sunnis and Saddam.
-The US backs the Kurds.
So we think the Middle East is still in turmoil but many of the details are different.
By the Way, World War 1990: Operation Eastern Storm has Saddam invading Kuwait. One of the things we will deal with in the final novel is the implications of a world where Saddam is the king of the Middle East.
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