Without the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, would there be a rising Iran or ISIS?

[ingemann]

Wow this is a serious good question.

Well as for Iran it was a country on the rise even before 2003, of course without the paranoia over USA in Iraq and the Bush administration behaviour toward Iran, we may have seen a early liberalisation, and avoided the era of Ahmadinejad, of course a liberalising Iran would be even stronger today.

As for ISIS, "ISIS" started in Jordan before the Iraq war, the occupation of Iraq gave proto ISIS a opportunity to move into Iraq get some experience and through a "darwinistic" selection getting a very competent leadership. So without the Iraq war ISIS as a organisation would be just another incompetent terror organisation in the Middle East.

But here's the thing, I have a hard time seeing the Middle East avoiding the Arabic spring, of course this alternate Arabic spring would likely be different, Gaddafi would like still have disappeared, Egypt and Tunisia would likely have gone the same way as we see today. But what's interesting is Iraq and Syria, I think Syria would have avoided its civil war, we would likely have seen some thousands broken skulls. But Iraq would likely have seen a major Shia uprising supported by the Iranians.