Reagan had waited out the Soviets. Why wouldn't he have waited out the Iraqis? The Iraqis were a perfect counterforce to the Iranians. Why get rid of that? The cost of maintaining the no-fly zone for decades would have been chump change compared to what we spent to make Iraq safe for ultimate Iranian takeover.
What kind of a strategic outcome is that?
So in other words, Reagan made an example of Grenada (who is not even remotely as close to the U.S. as Cuba), but wouldn’t have made an example of Iraq?
Reagan “waited out” the Soviets?
Did you think that Reagan was going to invade them and destroy Western Civilization, perhaps all civilization?
Do you know what war meant there? One reason many of us voted for Reagan in 1980 was because we felt that the Soviets were going to move against western Europe sometime around 1984 or 1985.
Reagan pumped everything we had into Europe and new weapons and clothing and preparedness for the military, to try and prevent that apocalypse, the tension for the GIs in Europe was immense, because the deaths would have been in the many, many, millions, including the loss of vast swaths of populations and cities, those were very tense times to be a NATO soldier.
In the face of 911, with no Soviet Union to interfere, Reagan would have taken down Hussein, and created an American foothold in the the Arab/Muslim world.