I have no doubt of that. Of course, he also attacked Iran because the US was okay with it and attacked Kuwait because he thought the US wouldn’t oppose him. If he thought the US wouldn’t have intervened he very likely would have invaded SA too, but I’m not convinced he was ever that crazy.
Invading a neighbor for profit only works if the monetary gains exceed the cost of the war. They did (so far as Hussein knew at the time) in the case of Kuwait, but SA would have been a much more expensive invasion.
[QUOTE=Gyrate]
I have no doubt of that. Of course, he also attacked Iran because the US was okay with it and attacked Kuwait because he thought the US wouldn’t oppose him. If he thought the US wouldn’t have intervened he very likely would have invaded SA too, but I’m not convinced he was ever that crazy.
[/QUOTE]
Well, after he figured out that the US was unhappy enough to start sending in troops and building up allies who were doing the same thing he didn’t back down…he seems to have thought that he COULD fight off not just the US but the rest of the alliance and forced some sort of resolution on his own terms.
The thing is, the US military, as powerful as it is, doesn’t move on a moments notice…not for something that big. And he might have rightfully thought that if he could take Saudi Arabia quickly enough, it would have prevented the US from being able to rapidly reinforce. It took us months to build up the forces needed to kick him out of Kuwait in reality, and he might have based what we could or couldn’t do on what his own military could or couldn’t do, to a certain extent. Also, he obviously misjudged our response on Kuwait, so nothing to say that he wouldn’t have misjudged it in the future, especially if we backed down on Kuwait instead of fought as happened in reality. A lot of people throughout history have felt that Americans weren’t willing to fight if it costs a lot or caused us a lot of causalities…that we’d back down if it came to a real fight. I think some of the reason Saddam didn’t back down even after it became apparent that we WERE going to fight him for Kuwait is his assessment that if he bloodied our nose and made us really have to fight for it we would give in and go home, and that in any sort of settlement his possession and official annexation would give him bargaining room. That he hopelessly miscalculated the disparity in technology (he essentially brought a feather to a gun fight) was perhaps a blind spot, but then I was in the military at the time and I can tell you that there were a LOT of people who didn’t predict it would be that much of push over. I remember plenty of talking heads saying that the US could and probably would take substantial causalities, since Iraq was on the defensive and dug in, and that it could take months or even years to get him out of there and cost us plenty of dead and wounded.
-XT
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Invading a neighbor for profit only works if the monetary gains exceed the cost of the war. They did (so far as Hussein knew at the time) in the case of Kuwait, but SA would have been a much more expensive invasion.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but the potential gains would have been astronomical. Especially when you consider the fact that simply due to war in the region the price of oil would shoot up, making his own resources worth even more. Look at what’s happening in the oil markets due to the Libyan situation. Multiply that several times if an Iraq possessing Kuwait’s resources goes to war with Saudi Arabia possessing even more.
Besides, I don’t know where people are getting the impression that Saudi Arabia had such a strong military in the early 90’s. The reason they ended up bringing us in was because they knew that their military was no match for Saddam’s…on paper at least. Or really in reality, since SA didn’t have the levels of training at that time necessary to actually use all that fancy equipment they had bought from us and the Europeans effectively. They also didn’t have a very large military at the time.
-XT
I guess the easiest way to cast this hypothetical is to speculate on what President Michael Dukakis would have done.
I think that’s a pretty easy one. 
-XT
People can talk themselves into a lot of things. It’s hard for me to believe that anybody would not support the use of force to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, but, as I said, some people did. Had we done nothing about Kuwait, I can easily see Saddam believing about SA what he did about Kuwait - that the West was going to talk big but do nothing effective. Like we did about the inspections for a dozen years.
Especially if he had the Bomb. It would be like North Korea smack in the middle of the Middle East. Except it would be Tel Aviv he would be threatening instead of Seoul, and with the tacit or outright support of a good many of his neighbors.
Regards,
Shodan
The Saudis have never had a real big army, but they have had top line aircraft for a long time. The Royal Saudi Airforce was formed, trained and equipped by the British in the 20s. It was reformed in the 50s. In 1952 America started selling military jets and training the airforce,They have a well equipped and well trained airforce. They have had top equipment supplied by the west for a long time.
They have not had a large ground force.
My understanding is that the people who voted against Gulf War resoultion (and it passed by only a 52-47 vote) were not in favor of letting Saddam have Kuwait. They wanted us to force Iraq out of Kuwait but they didn’t like that specific resolution because they felt it gave the President an unrestricted permit to go far beyond the defense of Kuwait.
As it turns out, the first President Bush did not exceed the intent of the resolution. He liberated Kuwait and then stopped the war.
But we’ve also seen that those concerns were not unjustified. Some presidents might take a resolution and use it to justify deploying troops far beyond anything members of Congress had intended.
[QUOTE=gonzomax]
The Saudis have never had a real big army, but they have had top line aircraft for a long time. The Royal Saudi Airforce was formed, trained and equipped by the British in the 20s. It was reformed in the 50s. In 1952 America started selling military jets and training the airforce,They have a well equipped and well trained airforce. They have had top equipment supplied by the west for a long time.
[/QUOTE]
They have top of the line aircraft (and tanks and such as well btw). The trouble is that those weapons systems don’t fight themselves, and even if the individual pilot or tank crew is good that doesn’t make for a good, cohesive military force. My own recollections are that in the late 80’s or early 90’s (when all this would have been taking place), the Saudi military was woefully under-trained, had poor maintenance (IIRC, they actually subcontracted out their maintenance), and poor logistics, poor C&C and…well, poor everything except equipment.
Quantity has a quality all it’s own, ehe? And Saddam had a VERY large army, certainly by regional standards at that time. If we assume that there was no Gulf War I to cut it back, and assume he had access to Kuwait’s resources as well, it would have been even more formidable. Also, I’m unsure how the Saudi people would have fought. You know, I’m sure, that the Saudi government isn’t exactly universally loved by their people. For the most part, the royal family is able to buy a certain level of contentedness from their people, but that translates into more apathy than fervent devotion. I’m unsure how they would fight if it came down to it and they were asked to give up their lives to maintain the house of Saud…certainly, I’m unsure of how they would have fought in the time frame we are talking about here.
-XT
Kerry seems pretty much to have been against war in general.
Regards,
Shodan
Saddam would never have invaded Saudi and actually had a legitimate territorial/resource/financial beef with Kuwait, not to mention Iraq’s historical claim on Kuwait as Iraq’s 19th province. If you want to know the background behind why he invaded Kuwait you can read all about it via this Wikileaks-leaked diplomatic cable that details out guys meeting with him back when he was still our ally and him explaining his position :
What was his ‘legitimate territorial/resource/financial beef’ with Iran then?
-XT
They’re jerks.
Good for him. I’m against war in general myself. I think most people are. Wars are bad. People get killed and all that.
Kerry wasn’t saying that we should never go to war. He was saying we should consider the cost of going to war before doing it. Which is a good idea.
And decided that, in that instance, it was not worth the cost and risk to remove Saddam from Kuwait. Which demonstrates that he was either stupid, or a moral coward.
Being against war is a fine thing. Being so against it that you never go to war when it is justified is not a fine thing. It’s being stupid.
Which is why it is a good thing that Kerry never made it to the White House. As most of his commanding officers in Viet Nam agreed, he is not fit for the office.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, in fairness, at the time nobody knew that Gulf War I would turn out to be the asskicking that it was. I was in HS at the time and many of us were convinced that the draft would be reinstated when we turned 18, that many tens of thousands of Americans would die in a prolonged Vietnam-type war.
It’s understandable that some would decide that Kuwait was not worth that sacrifice on our part, just like South Vietnam wasn’t worth it a generation before.
Do you know the things you’re saying aren’t true but hope they convince somebody else? Or are you the guy who was convinced by somebody else’s lies?
He would have called the Iraqi ambassador to the White House for a stern lecture. The American ambassador to the UN would have given an eloquent speech in favor of national self determination. That would have been about it.
I did not vote for George H.W. Bush, but 1988 was the only time during my voting life that I did not vote for the Democratic candidate either. I voted for Dukakis in the primary. By the general election Lee Atwater convinced me that I did not want a member of the American Civil Liberties Union as president. The Willy Horten stuff worked too. Letting Horten out on a weekend furlough was a crazy idea.
A lot of things could have gone wrong during the Gulf War. The Israelis could have launched a preemptive air strike against suspected Skud missile sites that achieved little militarily, but killed a lot of civilians. That would have disrupted the anti-Iraq Arab coalition. The Communist coup that happened a year later could have happened a year earlier, and it could have succeeded. A revised USSR could have sent weapons to Saddam.
Part of the reason this did not happen was luck. Nevertheless, I thought Bush I did a splendid job. I was and am glad he was president then.
I did not care about Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. I did not even care terribly about the price of gasoline. I do not have a car. Expensive gasoline will encourage Americans to find alternatives to automobile transportation.
I do care about Israel. My fear that was that if Saddam got away with the invasion of Kuwait, he would do the same with Saudi Arabia, spread the oil wealth around to poor Arabs - who at the time seemed to admire him - and attack Israel.
Because of my love for Israel I wanted Iraq to be beaten into the sand. It was. I also care about the indigenous Christian populations in the Arab world. The Assyrians and Chaldeans took a hit during the Gulf War, but the safety and well being of Israel was assured.