This question bothers me considering the death toll sustained by both forces of Iraq, the coalition and importantly not forgetting the many tens of thousands of innocent civilians who were killed Iraq; as a consequence of war and the insurgency which ensued.
We have seen all over the middle-east uprisings which have taken down dictatorships who have been in power for many years. Would the same have occurred had the west not invaded Iraq eventually.
Although this is all in hindsight and people can't predict the future and what will happen, I'm just wondering, in a different world, would the situation be different to the extent that Saddam was overthrown without the death's of so many people.
This of course is speculation as to whether Saddam would have eventually been overthrown. However consider the 1991 First Gulf War and how Saddam's army was in disarray being totally destroyed of any fighting power. You could say the people of Iraq could have used that as an opportunity to up-rise against Saddam. However I guess the people didn't have the will-power to want to do that at the time. Though I again wonder if the people of Iraq would have been influenced by other middle-eastern countries and their uprisings against their own dictators, effectively running and controlling the country like a monarchy. I just wonder if the large death-toll which ensued because of western forces and Al-Qaeda forces who came in later on, could it have been averted if an uprising similar to what we are seeing and saw in the middle, could have happened in Iraq?
Just something I was thinking about.
