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Comment by croes

3 days ago

Like when the US removed Saddam?

How did that wirk out?

You need more of a plan than just get rid of a dictator.

10 comments

croes

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swat535  3 days ago

Iran can end up in a much more dire state. It can end up another Syria / Libya.. or worse another aggressive group like Taliban can take hold of the central government.

I also fear that the looming, imminent war between Israel and Iran is going to make things works. I'm expecting Israel to start a conflict within the next 6 months (or sooner) with the aid of United States.

This is the weakest IRGC have been. Many of their allies have been crippled, they have water issues, economical issues and now protests.

I think that securing Venezuela's oil aids this, should IRAN attempt to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, it will allow Israel and United States to maintain reserves (to what extend, I don't know).

I think things are going to get difficult for Iranian people, no matter what.

reissbaker  3 days ago

It worked out poorly for America — we got stuck in a long expensive war that we got basically nothing from — but for the average Iraqi? I'd much rather be an Iraqi citizen than an Iranian one, and that wouldn't have been true in the 90s. Saddam was pretty evil — and a bad leader. Iraq's GDP per capita is 6x higher today than it was in 2002, a year before the invasion.

  • csb6  3 days ago

    It worked out pretty poorly for the average Iraqi. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed (some estimates put it at around 1 million), and millions of people became refugees.

    Citing the relative GDP per capita number is reductive and doesn’t give a good picture of the average person’s life.

    • flawn  3 days ago

      The GDP should be banned as a metric for being a life quality proxy, it's insane how so many people still refer to it although proven to neglect so many parts of what counts into LQ. To OP: Go check out Doughnut Economics - the book does a good job clearing up economical fallacies & mismodelling of such things.

    • croes  3 days ago

      The whole mess led to ISIS and they claim victims in multiple countries.

  • ks2048  3 days ago

    This is a pretty wild counter-factual. Reminds me of a report I saw about a hipster cafe existing in Baghdad 2025 as proof of success of the US invasion. What would the alternative have been? How do you factor in the loss of life? I suppose the real answer is asking Iraqis...