Read this story from December last night, pretty crazy how the Syrian regime has become so entangled in drug trafficking. The stories about fighters on all sides of the civil war taking captagon before battles are pretty crazy. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/world/middleeast/syria-drugs-captagon-assad.html
Listening to a pod about the Iraq Iran war. How in the world was saddam ready for another war in 91 after this one ended in 88? Also I couldn’t imagine this war happening today with the advent of social media
lions led by donkeys. Fun podcast a lot less dense than other history pods like Dan Carlin for example
Also listening to this, it totally makes sense why saddam pretended to have WMD’s all the way up until the Iraq invasion
They didn't mention how ridiculously large his army was by the end of the war (a million men from a population of about 18 million) with all the Soviet hardware (bought with loans from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc) to go with it? Best documentary I've seen on the conflict and a somewhat interesting news piece from the start of the war. Funny to hear Saddam called a remarkable leader in 1980 and highlight Iraqi women not wearing veils, that rhetoric sure changed within a decade.
Came back to this, I'm not a big podcast guy but was the gist of it the World War I tactics with modern weapons?
Part of it, more so it was just the openness with which both side committed war crimes and no one gave a shit
No doubt, definitely related to the big powers general attitude toward atrocities outside of Europe. If you haven't watched the PBS Frontline Iran vs Saudi Arabia 2 part documentary they touch on the war and how many people in Iran are still suffering from Iraqi chemical weapons. The Rumsfeld Saddam handshake is one for the history books.
it’s wild Iraq used chemical weapons just as a matter of course during that war. Also I have no clue how Iraq went through what it did then invaded Kuwait 3 years later
Saddam executed generals who didn't succeed then ultimately gave control to the Defense Minister who I wanna say was his brother in law. Saddam had to put out propaganda that he "won" the war so the Defense Minister became popular. Saddam knew he couldn't outright execute him because the guy was too popular and ultimately died in a helicopter crash highly suspected of being a murder. Dictator politics border on hilarious were it not for people dying because of paranoia or other nonsense.
Well if they'd had all the equipment and whatnot at the start they probably would've rolled Iran. I think by 88-89 despite the size of the Iraq's military they were just mentally worn down from almost a decade of war plus the Iranians always had numbers (population of 53 million in 1988) and despite everything were never hesitant about casualties. Kuwait is also tiny and for its size had a disproportionate amount of oil. Saddam fucked up by not immediately seizing the Saudi ports which would've been easy and he would've controlled like 40% of the world's oil. At that point it would've been much easier to force a bloody stalemate without US access to all of Saudi Arabia. If you haven't watched the Gulf War Frontline from 1996 it's excellent like all Frontline documentaries and even Dick Cheney is realistic.
Both the Israelis and Palestinians are accusing each other and neither are credible in this from what little I've seen thus far. Need more investigation for sure.
11 years after starting the Arab spring, Tunisia used their democracy to vote to turn the government back into a dictatorship by 92% of 8%. They really love their strongmen.