What if coalition forces had taken the opportunity to depose the Iraqi dictator in 1991? © AFP/Getty images

What if... Schwarzkopf had ousted Saddam in 1991?

A second Iraq War would not have happened and simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would not have occurred in the same way
July 17, 2014

In 1991, coalition forces led by Norman Schwarzkopf liberated Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. What if his armies had rolled all the way to Baghdad and ousted the Iraqi dictator? The immediate aftermath would have been a coalition of 34 nations under a UN mandate calling the shots and not—as eventually happened in 2003—an alliance of the very few, isolated in international affairs. The naturally more emollient George HW Bush would have sought an outcome based on pragmatism rather than neo-conservative ideology; Schwarzkopf would have commanded a force sufficient for the post-conflict task; and the Saudis would have demanded the preservation of the rights of their Sunni co-religionists as the price of their bankrolling the operation.

Above all, a second Iraq War, with all its consequences, would not have happened and simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would not have occurred in the same way. A few years’ down the line, when confronted with the excesses of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, David Cameron would have drawn on the rich tradition of liberal intervention regarded as Tony Blair’s most significant legacy and led the international response.

Given a decent start, a federal Iraq might have emerged, bearing a curious resemblance to the vilayet structure of the Ottoman imperium. There would have been sectarian tensions but with the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as guarantor powers the centre would have held. What’s more, the economic benefits of federalism would have allowed the Kurds and Shias to prosper sufficiently on oil-based wealth to buy off any separatist instincts.




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In regional—perhaps historic—terms, the situation would have been radically different. The expansion of Shia power, in which the invasion of 2003 was an unknowing but complicit partner, would never have happened. If Iraq had maintained its territorial integrity under a broadly plural and representative government, Iran would have been contained. Instead, and as a result of the naked sectarianism of Nouri al-Maliki’s leadership, Iraq has become a client state of Iran and a contiguous geography has been created that looks remarkably like the Persian Safavid Empire of the 17th century, the last apogee of Shia power.

In turn this has provoked a Sunni revanche and transformed the geopolitics of the Middle East, revivifying the always incipient civil war within Islam and placing us, in 2014, at the end of the first decade of the Thirty Years War of the 21st century.

Whether Osama bin Laden would have felt the same degree of religious outrage at an American presence in the Middle East will have to remain a matter for speculation. But even if the 9/11 attacks had proceeded in the same way, a vengeful George W Bush would have had a single, undistracted focus for American power. The invasion of Afghanistan which, lest we forget, was broadly welcomed, would have been supported by the key international agencies and attracted funding and manpower from nations anxious to show solidarity in the face of terrorist outrage. After the scattering of the Afghan Taliban the universal sense of optimism and possibility which observers from Sandy Gall to the Guardian’s Jason Burke recorded at the time would have given an international force a free run through Afghanistan and allowed the west to declare victory and leave, probably after a couple of years.

If Afghanistan subsequently, as is its penchant, reverted to political medievalism, that would have been its affair. In the event, the US did not concentrate its power but became distracted by the siren call of Iraq. When it returned in 2006, it faced a different situation and the wars meant to illustrate western power ended up illustrating its limitations.

So much for the big stuff, but what of more personal stories? After an appearance at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Saddam Hussein would have served his 10-year prison term and survived under house arrest on his chicken farm just outside Tikrit. The murderous malevolence for which he was known in his pomp would have become the mild eccentricity of a man suffering from advancing dementia and vaguely aware that he was somebody, once.

Tony Blair, in contrast, would have flourished. The gradual but inevitable move to the political right would have placed him handily to contest the nomination of the centre-right parties for the European Union presidency. David Cameron’s red carding of his only rival, Jean-Claude Juncker, would be seen as nakedly nationalist—but never mind, Tony was back.