A scenario involving something other than,
"everything will be fine."
Saddam remains in power. His sons continue their
lifestyles too. The UN Sanctions fade away under
Saddam's PR campaign, helped by the French,
Russian, and Chinese interests who are seeking oil
contracts. The British and US overflights
continue, but become increasingly dangerous as
Saddam is eventually able to acquire better
missile systems. When Sanctions collapse entirely,
he has $50, $60 per barrel oil money at his
disposal. He restarts his WMD programs, on a low
level to avoid reactivation of sanctions, mostly
the bio- and chem- stuff because his engineers are
still having trouble mastering the nuclear fuel
cycle. Saddam's regular killings continue, adding
one hundred thousand to the three hundred thousand
already under the sand. He bides his time, acting
as a small nuisance to the West, increasing his
contacts with al-Qaeda and other groups, doing
nothing substantial--let's be conservative
here--and slowly rearming. Now oil is at $70 a
barrel and he has restocked his WMD supplies to
the level UN inspector Anthony Lake discovered in
the 1990s. The Iraqi engineers get the hang of the
nuclear fuel cycle and are producing a prototype
weapon. Bending to international outcries forged
by the Iraqi PR campaigns, the US and UK cease
their overflights and hunker down.
Oil is now at $80 a barrel. Iraq's army has
modernized and his air force has been upgraded
with the hundreds of billions of dollars in new
revenues. Saddam drops dead of a heart attack.
Uday Hussein seizes power, killing his brother in
a coup that elevates his most trusted associates
to high position. Uday is not as revenge-driven as
Saddam, but deeply psychotic, a'la Hitler. His
trusted associates from the rape-room days tell
him he should restore Iraqi pride by reoccupying
Kuwait, only this time he should show his power by
detonating a nuke at the Saudi border, which if
anything will render the Gulf War I land force
route untenable. They convince him. Using his new
North Korean missile technology, he sends a 500
kiloton nuclear warhead into Saudi territory south
of Kuwait to coincide with the Iraqi Army's ground
assault. This has the unforeseen consequence--to
Uday and his buddies that is--of prompting an
Israeli retaliatory nuclear strike against
Baghdad, leveling the city, but missing Uday and
his underground command center south of Tikrit.
Vexed by the Zionists' reaction, Uday unleashes a
series of missiles with antibiotic-resistant
smallpox payloads into Israeli population centers.
The US comes to Israel's defense by a series of
tactical nuclear strikes against all military and
strategic centers in Iraq.
So far we have seven million dead and the smallpox
is spreading beyond Israel's borders into Egypt,
Europe, and the US. Oil is now at $300 a barrel.
You can imagine the rest of the scenario yourself.
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