>>Don't the historical examples prove it can be done? Why do you disregard them? <<

I think the situation- the environment- the Iraqis were living in was different than those peasants in your historical examples.

A couple of hundred years ago I think it was much easier for those peasants to gather and meet than it was for Saddam’s Iraqis. You must take into account the Iraqis were afraid to speak out against Saddam. Saddam ruled by fear and kept an iron fist on his people. They were too afraid to say anything anti-Saddam. They might get turned in. Who could they trust? It was very much like the Gestapo or KGB. So they couldn’t get organized, not the ones living in Central Iraq.

The Kurds had some distance between them and Saddam. They were a tight group. Saddam feared they might rebel (I don’t know if they tried or Saddam just heard they might try) so he killed tens of thousands of them and also killed any chance of a revolt.

But say you could get enough Iraqis together where they could plan a revolt, without getting caught. What are they going to fight with? Maybe they could infiltrate the army, but they would most likely be exposed. Saddam rewarded people who turned in anyone who spoke against him.

So with this in mind, it was also easier for the French peasant to take on their oppressors than it would be for Iraqis to fight Saddam’s army.

It appears they did want to revolt. When we freed Kuwait from Saddam’s invasion and then entered Iraq back in 1990, many Iraqis saw it as an opportunity to revolt. They thought we would back them up. We didn’t. We failed them, and Saddam’s army slaughtered them.

So I believe such a thing was impossible without outside help. And it seems we agree on that point, as I quote you below.

>>Well first off, there are lots of ways to do it. We could use a soft approach like are happening in Cambodia, Viet Nam, and PRC etc., where time, mercantile pressure, and middle class expectations do the work of armies. Or we could do an Afganistan sort of thing where Shia are armed over years by Iran and Kurds are armed over years by US, and then US air power supports the revolution. Or? <<

Yes, for any chance they would need outside help.