Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

This highway was later called the Highway of Death. CNN cameras captured everything once again and broadcast it around the world; what they saw disturbed many, including those who supported the war.

Charred vehicles and corpses were everywhere, some bodies frozen in time as if they were trying to climb out of car windows. Some sections of the road were covered with only a layer of black charred residue, making it impossible to identify what they were.

Critics argue that this was a massacre of fleeing enemy troops, not a legitimate military operation, since they were already retreating and no longer posed a threat. Why then are Israel and the United States bombing them?

Supporters argue that they have not surrendered yet, that they are retreating with weapons and looted goods, and that a retreating army that has not yet disarmed remains a legitimate military target!

This debate will never be resolved, but the photograph of the road stretching for dozens of kilometers, piled high with charred vehicles and corpses, became the most shocking image of the war to the world.

If Israel continues down this path, the United States is likely to face widespread discontent in the Arab world. This cannot continue!

President Gephardt looked at the television screen in the White House and finally made his decision: "Enough, we have achieved our goal, it's time to end this."

He was a Democratic Party member with an anti-war stance, and in his eyes this was an act of massacre by Israel—even though the United States had to hold its nose and defend Israel on the international stage, his conscience was constantly tormented by the sight of those charred corpses crawling out of the car windows.

Is it all worth it?

On February 19, Göphat announced a ceasefire, exactly 100 hours after the ground forces launched their offensive.

Kuwait was liberated, Iraqi troops were driven out of Kuwait, a portion of the Republican Guard was severely damaged, and the coalition suffered very few casualties.

During this month, the coalition destroyed a large amount of Iraqi army heavy equipment and annihilated or routed Iraq's main forces. The number of American casualties was less than 500, a considerable portion of which were friendly fire.

There is no exact figure for the death toll in Iraq, but conservative estimates range from 20,000 to 35,000. If civilian casualties are included, the number would easily exceed 100,000.

The desert finally quieted down and returned to its original state, the only change being the numerous bomb craters. Everywhere were the wreckage of destroyed equipment, black oil stains, and scorch marks left by flames.

On Highway 80, the recycling team began clearing the site. They used bulldozers to push the debris off the road, finding a lot of things among the charred metal, plastic, and glass.

An Iraqi soldier's helmet, with his family members pasted inside.

A photograph floated out of the train carriage, its edges charred, but the image in the middle was still visible: a woman in a skirt holding a child and laughing under a tree.

A television set stolen from a Kuwaiti home, its screen shattered, half its casing melted, and covered in sand and blood.

This is what war left behind in the Middle East.

President Gephat said in the ceasefire statement:

"The United States has achieved its goal, Kuwait has regained its freedom! The free world has once again defended its people! Long live freedom!"

------

2月23日，联合国安理会以13票赞成、2票弃权的投票结果通过了关于海湾战争正式停火的第687号决议，伊拉克不得不接受决议。

The resolution requires Iraq to recognize its border with Kuwait, unconditionally destroy all chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 150 kilometers, refrain from possessing or developing nuclear weapons in the future, and compensate for the damages caused by its invasion of Kuwait.

Iraq has given back everything it gained over the past decade. What it seized from Iran during the seven-year Iran-Iraq War is gone, and Kuwait, which it conquered, has regained its global standing. Domestically, it faces economic sanctions and severe discontent within the military. Anger is rising among the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south...

Iraq, now in its twilight years, is approaching a new crossroads. Most of the US troops have withdrawn, leaving behind a landscape of ruins and more US bases. Kuwait faces the destruction of its domestic oil wells by withdrawn Iraqi forces, which have set them ablaze. Meanwhile, Moscow is consolidating its power in Syria and Yemen, while simultaneously deploying special forces to secretly enter Iraq in preparation for dealing with Saddam Hussein.

Everyone has their own things to do.

In Baghdad, a somber mood hung over the opulent Palace of the Republic, while the Ba'ath Party and Saddam Hussein faced troubles far greater than defeat.

Chapter 118 Saddam Hussein flees north, dies in plane crash.

It's over, it's over.

Saddam Hussein sat in an underground bunker in Baghdad's presidential palace, looking at the summary report on the table in front of him.

Iraq's defensive lines, built over several months in Kuwait, were flattened like paper by American armored bulldozers. Its elite Republican Guard was routed by the US military in the desert. Due to his purges and the misguided command of his relatives, half of his air force deserted to the Soviet Union.

For this war, he lost everything he had gained from Iran over the past decade. Iraq's foreign debt is now on the verge of collapse, and the economic and military sanctions imposed by the US and the Soviet Union have fueled growing discontent within the country. Separatist forces are stirring, and many generals are dissatisfied with him because of his purges of the military—previously he could suppress everything with the Republican Guard, but now…

He was too arrogant, thinking that Iraq's victory over Iran was entirely due to its own strength. So he gambled Iraq's future on Kuwait, and now he has lost.

He had no choice but to swallow this humiliating pill, letting Kuwait and the West celebrate the so-called victory of the "free world" on their own, and letting CNN repeatedly broadcast images of Kuwaiti people waving flags and cheering in the streets, and American soldiers being embraced as liberators.

Now, he also needs to quickly deal with the chaotic domestic situation.

Saddam turned off the television.

The pale light from the bunker shone on his face and on the portrait of himself hanging on the wall—in the portrait, Saddam was dashing and handsome, dressed in military uniform, with piercing eyes.

The person in the portrait looks invincible.

But the person sitting under the portrait knew he had lost.

What should he do? Should he just hand over the foundation and power he has built up over decades? Should he take his confidants and wealth and slink away to South America to live out the rest of his life as an ordinary rich man?

That night, Saddam Hussein pondered for a long time. He thought of the millions of Iraqi people who had died in the war for his ambitions. Had they sacrificed their lives for him, only to receive such an outcome?

He thought of his vast wealth and his family's branches spreading across the country. What would happen to his bloodline for generations to come? He was very unwilling to accept this.

He can't give up. As the old saying goes, patience is not admitting defeat! If you admit defeat, you'll lose everything!

From growing up in the slums of Tikrit to participating in assassinations with a pistol to climbing to the top of the Ba'ath Party... Saddam Hussein faced countless moments of failure throughout his life, but he survived each one.

He is more ruthless than his opponents, faster than them, and strikes first. He will continue to dominate and continue to win!

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The domestic situation began to collapse the moment Saddam withdrew his troops from Kuwait.

First, it was the South.

Uprisings broke out in Shiite-majority areas in southern Iraq, including Basra, Nasiriyah, and Karbala. The Shiites rose up with American support as soon as the war ended.

The US military is not so benevolent. When the US military entered Iraq, it distributed a large amount of propaganda materials and provided weapons support in the local Shiite-majority areas, precisely to support them in launching a rebellion after the war.

The hatred these Shiites harbored for Saddam Hussein was built up over decades—Saddam was a Sunni, and his regime had systematically suppressed Shiites for decades.

Normally, it's the majority who persecute the minority, but things are different in Iraq—

Shiites make up more than 60 percent of Iraq's population!

But in all the key positions in the military, government, and economy, sat Sunnis, Saddam's fellow Tikritians.

Previously, Saddam Hussein could suppress these mobs with his core Republican Guard, but now the Republican Guard has been crippled, and the Shiites, with the support of Iran and the United States, have taken up arms.

The humiliation of defeat, the hardship under economic sanctions, the harassment of civilians by the remnants of the retreating army from Kuwait, and the US-proclaimed systematic repression of Shiites by the Iraqi government... all these pent-up angers erupted completely in the first week after the ceasefire!

Armed Shiite militias appeared on the streets of Ba'ra, attacking the local headquarters of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party and painting slogans on the walls.

"Down with dictator Saddam Hussein!"

Some Shiite soldiers who fled back from the front lines joined the rebellion with their weapons, and in the first week, large-scale uprisings broke out simultaneously among Shiites in southern Iraq and Kurds in the north. Shiites rose up in southern cities such as Basra, while Kurds revolted in northern cities such as Sulaymaniyah and Erbil.

The uprising spread extremely quickly, at one point controlling nine of Iraq's eighteen provinces.

Behind the insurgency, Saddam's intelligence system quickly discovered the presence of the Americans. The US military provided funding and information to the insurgents through intelligence channels, Shiite opposition groups in exile in Saudi Arabia and Iran, and various non-governmental channels.

In Kurdistan, northern Iraq, the Soviet-backed Kurdish armed group "Freedom Fighters" quickly seized several towns after the war. They were better armed and more organized because the Soviet Union was helping them.

Soviet support for the Kurds was nothing new. For decades during the Cold War, the Soviet Union maintained a covert relationship with Kurdish forces in Iraq—not because the Soviet Union genuinely cared about the Kurds' right to self-determination, but because the Kurds were a tool that could be used to contain Baghdad at any time.

However, neither the US nor the Soviet Union intended to excessively strengthen the rebel forces, because doing so would have negative consequences for both sides' operations in the Middle East.

First, there was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union could not support Iraqi Kurds in establishing an independent state because the Kurds were distributed across four surrounding countries.

There are approximately 30 million Kurds, distributed across northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria. These four regions are contiguous; if the Kurds in Iraq were to gain independence, the Kurdish populations in the other three countries would be immediately activated.

Turkey is a NATO member state, and the Kurdish population accounts for 20 percent of Turkey's total population. Since its founding, Turkey has regarded Kurdish separatism as its number one national security threat. The PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party has been waging guerrilla warfare for decades and is very powerful.

If the Iraqi Kurds establish a state, the Kurds in southeastern Turkey will have a "homeland" to which they can turn, a base to obtain weapons and training, and a role model from which they can draw spiritual strength.

The United States is very concerned that the Kurds pose too great a threat to NATO member states. Turkey is the United States' most important NATO ally in the Middle East, and the Englishlik Air Base is located in Turkey. The United States' Middle East strategy is highly dependent on Türkiye's geographical location.

The United States cannot afford to offend Türkiye for the sake of the Kurds.

In Iran, the Kurdish population is approximately eight million, primarily residing in the northwestern Kurdistan province. Iran's crackdown on Kurdish separatism is no less intense than Turkey's, and an independent Iraqi Kurdistan would turn Iran's northwestern border into a permanent source of instability.

As for Syria—a core Soviet ally with a large Kurdish population in its northeast. What would Assad think if the Soviet Union supported Kurdish independence in Iraq? If the Soviet Union supported Kurdish independence in Iraq today, would it support Kurdish independence in Syria tomorrow? The Soviet-Syrian alliance would immediately crack.

Therefore, Kurdish independence would offend three major regional powers—Türkiye, Iran, and Syria—and neither the Soviet Union nor the United States had any reason to touch this powder keg.

In reality, starting in the 1970s, the United States repeatedly used the Kurds and then abandoned them. Kissinger encouraged the Iraqi Kurds to revolt against Saddam Hussein in 1975, and then immediately withdrew his support after Iran and Iraq reached an agreement.

So those Kurds were subjected to brutal attacks by Saddam. Regarding this tragic situation, Kissinger famously said:

"Covered operations should not be confused with missionary work."

Similarly, the US support for southern Shiite militias was not aimed at enabling Shiite states, but rather at creating internal pressure on Saddam Hussein to quickly align himself with the US.

Saddam's reaction was exactly as everyone expected—military repression.

The Republican Guard units that had survived the war and were deployed in Iraq were mobilized. Republican Guard tanks rolled into the streets of Basra, T-72 guns were aimed at the domes of mosques, and armed helicopters circled over the city, strafing anything moving in the streets with machine guns.

The suppression made no distinction between military and civilians, between rebels and bystanders. Saddam's orders to the Republican Guard were simple: restore order.

As for how order was restored, he wouldn't ask.

"Any great cause requires someone to die for it," he remarked.

The Kurds in the north were even more difficult to defeat. The Kurdish armed forces were located in mountainous terrain, where tanks couldn't penetrate the complex terrain. Saddam's only options were helicopters and artillery. His army bombarded Kurdish villages one by one, forcing them to retreat into the mountains, and even used chemical weapons to massacre Kurdish villagers.

While these repressive actions were underway, Saddam Hussein began a purge of the military.

Because he knew the Soviet Union wanted to replace him. The Soviet Union condemned Iraq at the United Nations, halted military supplies, and Soviet intelligence agents were active in Baghdad, meeting with his generals for "tea"... Moscow's intentions were no longer a question.

There was only one feasible way for the Soviet Union to replace him—a military coup.

In Iraq, which Saddam Hussein ruled for more than two decades, there was no other way to change the supreme leader except through a coup d'état involving gunfire and tanks.

Sometimes, requesting retirement for health reasons is a luxury, a kind of "romance" for civil servants.

For the officers who staged the military coup, they were more inclined to implement the saying "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

To stage a coup, the Soviet Union needed the cooperation of people within the Iraqi military. Therefore, Saddam Hussein's task was to eliminate all those who might cooperate with the Soviet Union before the coup took place!

His targets were clear: generals trained in Soviet military academies, mid- to high-ranking officers who frequently interacted with Soviet military advisors, and commanders who had shown "hesitation" or "passivity" during the war...

Hesitation is incomplete loyalty, and incomplete loyalty is absolute disloyalty!

The methods of the purge were also Saddam-esque—no trial, no public announcement, just someone suddenly disappearing one night.

The next day, when his family inquired, they were told, "He's been transferred to another position." A few days later, his name was removed from all the lists, as if he had never existed.

Some did not disappear, but were publicly executed for treason. The executions were broadcast on television for other officers to see, and Saddam wanted them to see it clearly:

This is what happens to disloyalty!

Command of the Republican Guard was further centralized in the hands of Saddam's family members. His cousin Hussein Kamal took over most of the power in the military and security systems, his eldest son Uday began to dabble in the security forces, and his youngest son Qusay was placed in the Special Republican Guard—the core force protecting Baghdad.

Professional soldiers were kicked out one by one, while family members were pushed in one by one.

But the more Saddam tried to cleanse the situation, the worse it got.

Not all of the officers who were dismissed, suspected, or marginalized were willing to wait for death. Some of them began to secretly make connections, and many were in secret contact with KGB agents.

In Moscow, the KGB placed two relatively suitable names to succeed Saddam Hussein on Slava's desk.

The first choice was Nizar Khazraj.

He served as Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Army during the Iran-Iraq War and was one of the most senior professional officers in the Iraqi army. His military capabilities were widely recognized, and he had received military training in the Soviet Union.

He was not a member of Saddam's family and was a purely professional soldier. In another timeline, he went into exile after his relationship with Saddam deteriorated in the 1990s, and the United States considered him as a potential replacement for Saddam before the Iraq War in 2003.

His strengths lie in his military expertise and prestige among officers, but his weaknesses are that he is neither a member of Saddam's family nor in Tikrit's inner circle, and his political roots within the Ba'ath Party are too shallow.

Most importantly, he carries a historical baggage—he participated in and directly commanded the Anfar operation against the Kurds at the end of the Iran-Iraq War.

This means that reconciliation with the Kurds will be very difficult for him after he comes to power, because the Kurds will regard him as one of the perpetrators of the massacre.

The second candidate is Adnan Hailala Tarfah.

He was Saddam Hussein's cousin and brother-in-law, and served as Minister of Defense from 1977. This man enjoyed very high prestige within the Iraqi army. Unlike Saddam, who ruled by fear, he possessed genuine military capabilities and was far more lenient with soldiers and officers than Saddam.

He was the de facto core of military command during the Iran-Iraq War.

In another timeline, he died in a helicopter crash in April 1989, which almost everyone believed was the work of Saddam Hussein—because he was so popular in the military that he began to openly express his dissatisfaction with Saddam's decisions and reportedly criticized Saddam's family members for interfering in military affairs.

Slava believed that Hailara was the ideal replacement for the Soviet Union.

His family background gave him legitimacy within the Ba'ath Party—he was Saddam's cousin and part of the system. His military prestige allowed him to maintain control, and he also had good working relations with the Soviet Union—as Minister of Defense, he was the main liaison for Soviet military aid.

His personality also suited the needs of the Soviet Union.

Unlike Saddam Hussein, he did not have expansionist ambitions. He was more like a professional soldier who cared about the professionalization and modernization of the army rather than engaging in political adventures.

Iraq under his rule would likely be a military-dominated authoritarian state, but not a totalitarian state with a personality cult like Saddam Hussein's. The Soviet Union could then gradually transform Iraq until it became a qualified socialist regime and joined the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.

For dictators, the greatest concern is the excessive power of their subordinates. Saddam Hussein saw this as a potential threat to a coup and acted preemptively. Everyone in the country, including those in other countries, knew it was Saddam who was behind it, but no one dared to openly oppose him.

But in this timeline, Hella didn't die.

In 1989, Soviet intelligence intercepted intelligence that Saddam Hussein was plotting to assassinate Hailala. Chebrikov, through special channels, sent a signal to Saddam: Moscow knows what you're thinking.