If we hadn't invaded Iraq...

Peter J. Wallison indulges in a bit of alternate history.

...if we imagine what the world would look like today if Saddam Hussein had not been deposed, it seems clear that almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today's world with Saddam still in power.

We can look at what was actually happening in the build-up to the war, and run the scenario forward. We know that Saddam had thrown the weapons inspectors out of his country, and the sanctions were becoming increasingly porous. We know his people were working to develop nuclear weapons, and would have reinstated chemical weapons programs as soon as he could. And once he had them, he'd use them.

First, US troops would still be in Saudi Arabia. Our troops were there because of the Saudis' fear of an Iraqi attack. We should recall that one of the principal reasons bin Laden cited for attacking us—not only on 9/11, but for many years before—was that US troops were supposedly defiling the Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia.

Imagine, also, trying to persuade Iran to abandon the development of nuclear weapons when Iraq—which had attacked Iran—was actively engaged in doing exactly that. We hope now to change Iran's course through economic sanctions—a difficult prospect to be sure—but that would be a hopeless quest if its leaders and population believed they needed nuclear weapons to deter Iraq.

Then there's Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Before he was deposed by the US invasion, Saddam was bidding for leadership of the Arab world in its opposition to Israel and US policy in the Mideast. We can now see the resources he would have brought to bear in that effort. Saddam was a Sunni leader of a Shi'ite country. As he watched the Islamic world becoming more fundamentalist, he too became more overtly religious. Undoubtedly, he saw himself as the new Nasser, the one person who could unite the Arab and perhaps the Islamic world against the West and Israel. If he had remained in power, he would now be contesting with Iran for sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas.

Saddam's interest in driving the US out of the Middle East would be coincident with those of al Qaeda and he would have the weapons of mass destruction that al Qaeda has been seeking. We could never be sure that if we opposed Saddam—say, in another Iraqi invasion of Kuwait—he would not make weapons of mass destruction available to al Qaeda.

Some will disagree with this course of events. However, as has been asked elsewhere, "how likely does it have to be?"