Will Iraq ever return to the prestige and power it had when Saddam Hussein was running the country?
it was always a shithole
>>52041942
t. Bombed Iraq's nuclear facilities that would have gave them immunity from invasion
Yes, but not as 'Iraq'
>>52042004
t. diaspora
Iraq is the kind of state that can only be safe by building up a gigantic army and then start annexing other countries. Your fault for drawing such indefensible borders.
>>52042004
North Korea has nukes, and they're Somalia-tier.
>>52041832
>prestige
You'll need to turn back time before the mongols for that.
>>52041942
>>52042026
There is no way Iran would've or could possibly have annexed Iraq.
If America couldn't control the insurgency...although the Shia side of Iraq might've welcomed it.
>>52042064
Fuck off. Israeli posters always think someone is diaspora if you post about a certain country.
Literally the exact same posts when I posted a thread about Serbia and Yugoslavia a little while ago
>>52042086
Kuwait was a mistake in hindsight
>>52042105
And North Korea hasn't been invaded yet.
My point still stands
>>52042177
Iraq was the regional power in the middle-east at the time.
Iraq lost it's prestige and power decades before the invasion.
Nobody respected it, and nobody feared it outside of the stocks of aging chemical weapons.
>>52042289
North Korea didn't need to be invaded to be shit.
In fact, a US invasion would almost certainly improve their situation, being that they're a monoethnic country with neighbors that could probably stabilize them.
A nuclear umbrella would just mean that Iraq was permanently stuck as a pariah state with a fascist megalomaniac at the helm.
ISIS is probably the better choice, if it had to be one or the other.
>>52042426
>ISIS is probably the better choice, if it had to be one or the other.
Don't expect less from an American
>>52042289
>Iraq was the regional power in the middle-east at the time.
It's more because of how shit others were/are. Still, prestige isn't the word I'd use to describe them regardless of how powerful they were.
>>52042026
An Iraq de-facto annexed by Iran is a good alternative. The territory of Iraq used to be one of the sources of power of the Persian Empire and allowed it to expand. But if Iran wants to control Iraq again and used as a springboard to obtain dominance over the Middle East, it must be in a way that they get cooperation of the population so they don't get bogged down there.
>>52042322
>and nobody feared it
Well you learned to fear it, considering how you turned tail and ran.
>>52042511
Seriously though.
IS is going to be a pain in the ass to root out, but a nuclear armed Saddam would have controlled the entire country and stayed there forever.
And that's assuming he didn't do something retarded with Saudi Arabia, Israel, or Iran, and end up with Baghdad getting turned into a radioactive pile of concrete, adobe, and camel dung.
Daesh may be a pain in the ass, but Saddam was actually dangerous.
No if the people there keep pretending that shallow values like your material goods are more important than working society
Talking with Iraqi immigrants here is like talking with 13-year-old girls
>>52042622
>it must be in a way that they get cooperation of the population so they don't get bogged down there
The Iraqi government has already squandered almost all of its political capital with Sunnis. It's practically a Shia state at this point, with Sunni Iraq being almost entirely ISIS or ISIS-sympathetic territory.
I really don't see how Iraq can come out of this as a pluralistic society. A rearrangement of borders is all but inevitable; the only challenge is to ensure that ISIS doesn't become an actual state.
>>52042839
The real question is whether IS can alienate the Sunnis more than the governments of Syria and Iraq already have.
The US got to leave Iraq in the first place largely because the Sunnis got sick of AQI.
>>52042426
I wouldn't worry about it. Iran has been running the country since the SOFA expired, and even before.
>>52042622
They are getting bogged down as a direct result of their malign influence on Iraqi domestic policy. See: ISIS.
When we left, ISIS had no room to grow thanks to the Sahwa. The Iranians pressured the Iraqi govt. to forego Sunni integration and allow the Shiite militias free reign. Resulting in a disenfranchised Sunni minority who felt betrayed.
When ISIS came into Iraq, they were greeted as liberators by the Sunnis from the Shiite militias who were abducting and killing at will.
>>52042708
Saddam didn't have and did not try to get a nuke post 1990.
The 2003 invasion perma-fucked the entire region.
>>52043191
Yeah.
I'm just saying, saying that Iraq is shit because they couldn't get a nuke is retarded.
