21 Chapter 21: Make Way For The King

A/N: Guys. Firstly thanks so much to those who pumped in power stones and got the story back up the power rankings.

Now, I've been seeing that the complaints about side chapters and posting schedule have been increasing. I dont generally mind it, I get it. Stories on webnovel appeal to our wish fulfillment and we feel frustrated when a particular story we like isnt going our way.

But I want to offer you another perspective. You've read up to Chapter 20, so you clearly like the story to some degree. I am doing this for free and you're reading it for free. I cant give up on real life to devote myself to this full time. I try and post on all weekdays which I've managed for the past 3 weeks.

Also I write the so-called side chapters to give myself a break from one strand of the story which gets boring after a while. I also dont see them as side chapters. The attempt is to show that the MC's policies are having a real impact on everyday life in the country. But what I'm proposing is that you trust the chef. I absolutely may fuck it up or i may post something that gets you thinking and excites you.

So just sit back and relax. I'm still very excited because there's so many historical events yet to come. I hope you'll continue to enjoy what I write.

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July 1980 (Saddam POV)

It had been about 6 months since the war with the Kurds began. It wasnt much of a war to be honest. Our initial strategy was surprisingly effective. The Kurds were completely hemmed in and we had continually tightened the circle very very slowly, one hilltop at a time.

Battles, or skirmishes really, happened at very low intensity. So low in fact that on any given day no more than one squadron saw active combat.

My top armed forces commanders had formalized their gathering into a war centre and worked surprisingly well together. Faoud was the undisputed tactician while Saad had , to my pleasant shock, suppressed his ego and turned into a very effective moderator for the planning. I think despite my blatant attempts at introducing meritocracy, the innate respect for gray hairs worked in his favour.

I visited Kirkuk once a fortnight. My input was rarely needed. I was typically just given a summary of the plans that the Lt. Generals had already initiated. I loved the confidence but in the middle of the night I sometimes woke up in a cold sweat wondering whether that confidence could turn into a coup. I had made attempts to engage with the armed forces of India to induce some of the officers of that country's military to teach at Iraqs war college. I found India's military history in my timeline very interesting, despite the poverty and corruption in that country and the track record of such nations, the Indian military never attempted a coup and stayed firmly within civilian control. I didnt have any data on the reason but I suspected there was some indoctrination at the officer training level and I wanted to introduce that at the earliest.

But I was rebuffed time and again. India was fairly cold to me. I suspect it was because Saddam had, before my transmigration, publicly supported Pakistan. But now it could have been because I was seen as cozying upto America which during this time period was somewhat antagonistic towards India.

My Lt. Generals had come with an ingenious plan, they rotated the squadron positions to blood the freshest recruits. There was a general feeling amongst my armed forces that this war against the Kurds was a lead up to a bigger fight with Iran. I was keen to dissuade that feeling but the Ayatollah was making things hard by continuing to denounce me as the Satans whore. For a learned man he had quite a potty mouth.

If I hadn't transmigrated, we would have been approaching the time when Saddam announced the war against Iran. But that wouldn't happen this time and Iran didnt dare invade with America sitting at its border and saber rattling like a champ. Without the Iran Iraq war there would have been no Iran Contras scandal, and without that underhanded agreement there would have been no accord to liberate the 80 odd American Embassy staffers who were still held hostage in Iran.

America had already announced harsh sanctions against Iran as I had predicted and the whole world was abiding by them. I have no doubt there was major smuggling happening but not through Iraq. The sanctions didnt help me now. Even if Iran reached out to seek our food supplies I wouldn't anger America by accepting. If Iran offered to release the hostages to me in return for my intervention with America on the sanctions then that would eventually lead to an American drawdown in the region leaving me at Irans mercy.

No, the only option was to do nothing and hope that the hostage crisis and sanctions would extend for the better part of a decade. Khomenei died of illness towards the end of the decade. His initial successor was a very liberal and judicious Ayatollah called Montazeri. But in the wake of the Iran Contras scandal, Khomeneis goons executed an Iranian cleric Hashemi for publicly opposing the Contras deal with America. Hashemi and Montazeri were childhood friends and the execution of Hashemi led to Montazeri piling into Khomeneis rule which he compared unfavourably to that of the deposed Shah. So Khomenei essentially demoted Montazeri in favour of the much more hardcore Khameni.

It was an almighty mess but see without the Iran Iraq war there would be no Contras deal, so no execution of Hashemi and with any luck Montazeri would become the absolute ruler of Iran by the nineties. Montazeri sounded like someone I could work with. And if I survived the 80s without war I was confident that Iraq would become an economic miracle that my neighbours would aspire to emulate not destroy.

In this timeline Jimmy Carter was flying high. He had successfully saved America's economy for the decade, achieved the unachievable by getting a major Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel, he had even managed to spin the Argo caper as a personal success. Things were looking good for one term Jimmy to become an above average two term President. But that would possibly mean that Reagan might never happen. No war on drugs. No Reaganomics. I had no idea which butterfly's wings I had plucked and what size the resulting hurricane would be.

Red Adair had managed to plug the oil fires in Kirkuk within 2 weeks and I was proud that Iraqs oil output hadn't dipped at all during the period.

My time was consumed by the Spine of Iraq project and by the less heralded project of introducing the up-or-out policy in government offices. Kamal had taken to the latter project with gusto. He had formed tight bonds with some of the people we had met in our high level visit Singapore and he had taken the initiative to initiate a sandbox project in Baghdad which he was also overseeing. The past six months had transformed the capital city.

Crime had significantly reduced as the police patrols were vigilant, on time and by the books. There was no trash piling up on random street corners. The money from the Siemens project was being poured into the local economy and several fancy restaurants had opened doors. Kamal had mentioned that the queries from foreign investors and businesses had increased 66% on an annual basis.

There was of course a cost to all of this. The initial estimate was that the wage bill for the Baghdad Governorate had increased 5 fold already. A big chunk of the oil money would be spent in the next few years as we introduced up-or-out to the rest of the Iraq, and the benefits would be delayed and intangible. How do you quantify the primary, secondary and tertiary benefits of a more efficient and less corrupt State? Especially without spreadsheet software. But that was the whole point, I had the money, the power and the will to implement something I was convinced would be a gamechanger for the country. My hope was that the whole project would kickstart a virtuous cycle which wouldn't need Saddam eventually.

But it wasnt up-or-out that caught the eye of the world. It was the Spine of Iraq project. There was one article I think in the Economist that concluded that the long term economic benefits of the project would be enormous and suddenly the world media was 'Mad about Saddam'. Siemens loved the publicity and frankly so did I. It was a big learning exercise for me, when the media decided it loves you then it loves everything you do even the failures.

The global media began talking up my oil deal with the US, the Spine of Iraq project, the failed goodwill mission to Iran, the drastic decrease in youth unemployment from 32% to 7% and the generally cautious and non violent approach to the Kurdish rebellion. They even gave me credit for putting out the Kirkuk oil fires. My heart went out to Red Adair for the last one.

Ambassador Dickman was a regular at the Presidential Palace now. He had become comfortable...almost too comfortable with me and cracked wise and spoke informally which I found weird but didnt comment on. It was he who told me one evening when were consuming copious amounts of delicious beer, "You know Saddam, I heard an amazing rumour from a friend in New York."

"Oh?"

He nodded and grinned, "It was about you."

I quirked an eyebrow but didnt say anything. I was Saddam, I didnt gossip. Well not anymore.

"Uh huh...it was about a certain...Time Magazine!"

"Oh?"

"Uh huh...guess who's rumored to be the Person of the year 1980?"

"Anwar Sadat?" I asked immediately.

He shook his still grinning drunkenly.

"Red Adair?"

His grin slipped a bit but he shook his head again.

I gave it some more thought, "Has to be Bob Paisley then."

"Who's that...no look it's you. I heard that you're the top man in the running."

I shrugged but in my mind I was screaming in jubilation. My ugly mug might be on the cover of Time Magazine. That was immortality in it's own way.

"Yeah!" continued excitedly. "I mean once you get the formal invite to visit the White House I think you'll be a shoo in."

"Wait what?"

"Oh shit...I wasnt supposed to tell you that. Will you keep that to yourself old friend?"

A few days later we received a missive with a formal invite to visit America on a diplomatic mission as the guest of the President and a request to address Congress. This was, the biggest way that America could diplomatically honour a foreign leader. Was I excited, yes. Was I scared, yes. Scared because this visit would put me firmly in Americas camp, eight years ahead of the collapse of the Soviet Union.