August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

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Tim Smith
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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#31

Post by Tim Smith » 16 Jul 2010, 17:30

Roddoss72 wrote: Read the original post, it clearly states that the USSR does indeed begin to sell weaponry to Iraq.
Where? I can't see any reference to the USSR in the original post.

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Roddoss72
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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#32

Post by Roddoss72 » 16 Jul 2010, 17:41

Tim Smith wrote:
Roddoss72 wrote: Read the original post, it clearly states that the USSR does indeed begin to sell weaponry to Iraq.
Where? I can't see any reference to the USSR in the original post.
Must appologise, i am clearly wrong, i was actually quoting a response by you, whoops ain't i the silly one.

Ok you can bag me out i deserve it, i have already given myself an upper cut to the jaw. It hurt.


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LWD
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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#33

Post by LWD » 16 Jul 2010, 18:22

Von Schadewald wrote:No need to occupy all of Saudi Arabia, nor even take Riyadh. Just the main oil fields.

If instead of firing off his Scuds at Israel months later in dribs and drabs only when things got desperate, Saddam had fired off a salvo of 100 all aimed at Tel Aviv, with heavy Israeli civilian casualties (unlike in OTL, where only 1 Israeli died) even as he's advancing in to Saudi Arabia, that woud really stir things up.
....
Two major variants off the original in one post. It would be nice if we got past page 3 or so without radically changing things.

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Andy H
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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#34

Post by Andy H » 17 Jul 2010, 10:36

LWD wrote:
Von Schadewald wrote:No need to occupy all of Saudi Arabia, nor even take Riyadh. Just the main oil fields.

If instead of firing off his Scuds at Israel months later in dribs and drabs only when things got desperate, Saddam had fired off a salvo of 100 all aimed at Tel Aviv, with heavy Israeli civilian casualties (unlike in OTL, where only 1 Israeli died) even as he's advancing in to Saudi Arabia, that woud really stir things up.
....
Two major variants off the original in one post. It would be nice if we got past page 3 or so without radically changing things.
I agree

The thread author needs to decide which WI we are going to debate, involve himself in that debate, answer the various questions raised and not change tack as a means of answering or avoiding a question.

Regards

Andy H

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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#35

Post by Von Schadewald » 17 Jul 2010, 21:40

"The Jew is the Golden Thread who runs through history" (Sir James Jeans). So there's no way that the Jew ie the State of Israel in this case, can not get involved sooner or later in any post-1948 Middle East WI. Although religion is frowned upon here, if not even prohibited, even the arch-secularist irreligious Jewess Israeli PM Golda Meir admitted: "If the Bible has got nothing to do with it, then what exactly are we doing here?!".

Saddam had been threatening to "incinerate half of Israel", and even had the gall to claim that the sole reason he had invaded was in order to put pressure on the world to solve the Palestinian problem!

Image

As can be seen, there was a real fear at the time that atomic bombs could have been used by the Israelis.

John Major pleaded effectively with the Israelis not to respond at all to the 39 Scuds Saddam fired at a slow rate at them in February 1991, and to "leave it to the Coalition to deal with" - which was the mission of Andy McNab's "Bravo Two Zero" team.

But 100 fired in one salvo in August 1990 would have drawn a different response.

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Roddoss72
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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#36

Post by Roddoss72 » 18 Jul 2010, 06:14

Von Schadewald wrote:"The Jew is the Golden Thread who runs through history" (Sir James Jeans). So there's no way that the Jew ie the State of Israel in this case, can not get involved sooner or later in any post-1948 Middle East WI. Although religion is frowned upon here, if not even prohibited, even the arch-secularist irreligious Jewess Israeli PM Golda Meir admitted: "If the Bible has got nothing to do with it, then what exactly are we doing here?!".

Saddam had been threatening to "incinerate half of Israel", and even had the gall to claim that the sole reason he had invaded was in order to put pressure on the world to solve the Palestinian problem!

Image

As can be seen, there was a real fear at the time that atomic bombs could have been used by the Israelis.

John Major pleaded effectively with the Israelis not to respond at all to the 39 Scuds Saddam fired at a slow rate at them in February 1991, and to "leave it to the Coalition to deal with" - which was the mission of Andy McNab's "Bravo Two Zero" team.

But 100 fired in one salvo in August 1990 would have drawn a different response.
I hate to ask but exactly where do you intend for this thread to go?. Andy H asked you to clarrify this, you haven't, does Iraq invade Saudi Arabia and capture it completely (which is what you asked), or does Iraq just capture the oilfields (Your change of direction).

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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#37

Post by Von Schadewald » 18 Jul 2010, 09:58

To capture the whole of Saudia is obviously beyond the Iraqis alone to capture. Even Riyadh alone with a 6 million metroplitan population is too big to capture or even besiege.

I intend for Saddam to only capture the main oil areas and immediately publicise that he has boobytrapped all of them "for Palestine".

Although Carl Sagan's prediction that "the impact of the smoke of massed petroleum fires would loft into the upper atmosphere and the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the Year Without a Summer, in massive agricultural failures, in very serious human suffering and, in some cases, starvation, for south Asia, and perhaps for a significant fraction of the northern hemisphere" were not subsequently born out in OTL, just the fear of x50 the amount of smoke and soaring oil prices, may cause Bush to come to a deal, with Israel as the first sacrifice.

As a WW2 vet, I don't think Bush has the balls to use a micro-nuke on Saddam's palace, whose immediate use may have been required to defang the scenario of Saddam controlling 30% of the world's oil

Image

Although in August 1990 the USSR was gradually dissoluting, it was still extant with Gorbachev in power, and non-UN approved action by the USA may reawaken what's left of the bear, or even preciptate a sooner 1991-type coup.

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Roddoss72
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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#38

Post by Roddoss72 » 18 Jul 2010, 18:12

Still confused, you have mentioned that the Saudi Royal Family have scarperred to France, this is part of your "What If". If that is the case then why would the Saudi Royal Family need to bugger off to France while they expect the Saudi Poeple to defend the country, i seriously can't see that happening, i know what would happen if that were to occur, as soon as the Saudi Royal Family takes to the hills in France the Saudi armed forces will denounce the Saudi Royal Family and someone within the military will stage a coup de tat and reclaim Saudi Arabia as an Islamic Republic and then join Iraq with a Islamic Jihad against the west. That is exactly what would happen. Period. Then we would have the situation of the Islamic Republic of Saudi Arabia declaring its full support towards Palestine. Not only that, but, the Islamic Republic of Saudi Arabia will never allow US troops to set foot on IRSA soil. also as one of the main players within OPEC The Islamic Republic of Saudi Arabia is untouchable, the USA can't do a damns worth of spit, if she does that means that the Islamic Republic of Saudi Arabia will just threaten to shut off global oil supplies, this will shockwaves throughout the financial sectors of the world, stock markets will collapse as massive panic sweeps through.

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Andy H
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Re: August 1990: Saddam rolls on in to Saudi Arabia

#39

Post by Andy H » 18 Jul 2010, 21:58

Look, I'm more confused than ever given the ever changing parameters of this WI.

My suggestion is that the thread author goes away, re-reads this WI and comes back with a 'new' WI based around his intial thoughts, but with a more limited and focused scenario. Please take on board the criticisms as constructive and not personnel so that we may sebate his WI in a constructive manner and have a interesting discussion.

Regards

Andy H

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