Where Would America Be If It Never Invaded Saddam Hussein's Iraq?

Robert Farley

History,

No ISIS?

Key point: America would have saved trillions and thousands of lives. 

Every player of the popular video game Civilization knows to hit the save button before engaging in the risky, stupid invasion of foreign country. In the case of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it became apparent after the first few months that the war was not working out as its framers had envisioned.  The failure to find weapons of mass destruction was only the icing, so to speak, on the disaster of failed reconciliation, state collapse, and executive incompetence.

What if we had “saved game” before we invaded Iraq? What would America’s strategic options look like today?

The Middle East

In 2003, we spoke of the policy of “dual containment” as a problem that needed a solution.  How could the United States manage a pair of hostile countries right next to one another? Today, the wiser among us recognize that “dual containment” was, in large part, a solution to its own problem.  The animosity of the Hussein regime and the Islamic Republic of Iran meant that neither could achieve overarching influence in the Gulf.

In the wake of the Iraq War, “dual containment” has become “basket case management,” as Iraq has ceased to exist as a relevant strategic actor, and Iranian influence has grown in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.  While the U.S. no longer has to worry about Hussein, it has been forced to devote its military and political attention not only to the maintenance of the shaky Baghdad government, but also to the resistance of Iranian power in the region.

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The impact of the Iraq War on the Arab Spring is more difficult to sort out.  The framers of the war hoped that the establishment of a democratic Iraq would spur anti-authoritarian reactions around the region, although they also hoped that U.S. clients (including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states) would be spared. Something along these lines did indeed happen in 2011, but only well after most in the region had concluded that the invasion of Iraq was a disastrous failure.