What if.....(Iraq, Iran)

[supercrash]

The Shah was never installed by the USA
And
Mossadeq's Democracy was allowed to flourish in Iran ...?


What if....

The USA never overthrew Kassem in Iraq
And
Installed the Baath Party ...?

[shraby]

1. What if...

the U.S. Government finally realizes people DO have long memories and can remember the stuff it does in other countries?

[Alerter_]

2. if they had a stable, modern country

they would have unquestioned rights to their oil, which would be very bad for the US and the EU.

[Supormom]

3. Very bad for the US and EU?

Perhaps we would have concentrated on alternative forms of energy instead of dependence on oil from the middle east.

[Alerter_]

12. in the future, let's hope so

in the past and present the US needed control over Iraqi oil, and that one of the major reasons we have undermined their society since the 1950s.

[tom_paine]

4. That depends. Had we welcomed these democracies

(I know little about Kassem and what he stood for)

instead of stood against them, it may well be that the Soviets would have waltzed in and seized the Oil.

Or it may have meant that democracy would have flourished and...no way. Not with Stalin and the Soviets out there.

Hell, like in thoise old sci-fi shows, doing that may have brought about Nuclear War somehow. As the protagonists returns to the future after "saving Mossadegh" to find the world a glowing nuclear cinder

(cue Twilight Zone music)

[wuushew]

5. I really doubt the Ruskies would have just waltzed into the Middle East

Didn't Afghanistan "prove" that communism and Islam don't mix? In any case the lesson of the Soviet Union seems to be that the bigger your empire is the quicker it falls. Maybe the cold war would have ended in 1970 and thus no Raygun.

[tjwash]

8. The Soviets got their asses handed to them in Afghanistan.

That's also where the CIA trained, armed, and funded Osama bin Laden, to fight the Soviet Union. You would have thought we would have learned a lesson from all of that back them, but then again, Jr. isn't the brightest bulb in the building is he?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. Not a question of invasion.

It wasn't a question of the USSR invading these countries, it was a question of those governments aligning themselves with the USSR.

[tom_paine]

13. Good point. Well taken.

Communism doesn't mix with religion...period.

By definition.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. Huh?

>The USA never overthrew Kassem in Iraq

I was under the impression that the Baath party overthrew Kassem. Not that they didn't need the CIA's help, but they probably would have succeeded anyway. It's disingenuous to suggest that we "installed" the Baath party. And it's not like Kassem was a nice guy to begin with.

[wuushew]

7. In addition to that Saddam only became the head of Iraq in 1979

I wonder if the Baathists were really that bad between 63-79?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. Depends on who you ask.

Ask the Kurds about Bakr. They didn't have much love for him.

[supercrash]

11. I am not sure....but...

I think Kassem created OPEC, and the US wanted his head for it..they finnaly got rid of him by supporting the Baath party with the CIA