Question to ponder.....

[WCGreen]

If Saddam had died of a "natural" cause, or was deposed by one of the three main groups that make up Iraq, would the carnage be just as severe or would they have been able to work with each other...

Personaly, I think Saddam was keeping the lid on a pressure cooker and the whole thing would have eventually exploded into civil war...

But it would have been on their terms, not foisted upon that hapless country by the US...

Who knows...

If that would have happened, our masters in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait would have ordered us in to keep the peace...

So either way...

Just something to think about...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I'm sure that he was indeed keeping the lid on things there...

His death from inside the country would have indeed ignited a civil war...

With one important caveat: There would most likely not have been the influx of Al Quaeda that our invasion caused......

Who knows what would have happened if he had died, and not as a result of our illegal invasion?

You might be right about the Saudis wanting us to intervene in that case...

I don't know.......

One thing I am sure of.......the mess that that country is currently in, is our fault.........

[Vexatious Ape]

2. Saddam had his boot on the necks of the fundies.

Why? Because they where a threat to his power. Now the boot is off, and Islamic fundamentalism is allowed to flourish in all it's bloody gore.

[necso]

3. It was not merely Saddam

keeping a lid on things, it was also the instruments (physical instruments: military, secret-police, government, etc; policy instruments: coercion, bribes, etc; etc) that he used that kept a lid on things (or, as I like to say, "kept the cork in the bottle" -- look at Iraq's strategic position).

And if someone succeeded him who could (quickly) master the use of these instruments, if these instruments survived his passing not significantly changed, if there was no big battle for succession or control, and etc, etc -- then the cork could have been kept in the bottle for some time -- or so is my guess.

And we really only needed to keep the cork in the bottle until certain changes happened (or could be influenced to happen) in the region and beyond.

Less chance of that now.