No, he was an idiot who heard what he wanted to hear. There are even transcripts available.
www.nytimes.com
US Ambassador: Diplomatically states that USA is trying to be neutral on their border dispute, but they are concerned about the force buildup and would like to ask their intentions.
Saddam: They clearly have no problem with me using these forces to invade Kuwait and won't do anything about it!
No, until rise of ISIL.
Not all.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
300 to 900k out of 1.2m also left Syria, so its not much better there.
Unlikely.
The Pentagon has decided not to disclose the current number of nuclear weapons in the Defense Department’s nuclear weapons stockpile. The decision, which came as a denial of a request from FAS’s Steven Aftergood for declassification of the 2018 nuclear weapons stockpile number, reverses the U.S...
fas.org
We're talking about 2500 mostly simple warheads that have to be delivered by freefall bomb.
What did Soviets have? Number wise they had warheads in mere hundreds, but they probably could hurt USA back, and absolutely wreck Europe, they had this 3 MT thermonuclear bomb since 1955, deliverable by Tu-16 bomber.
en.wikipedia.org
So sure, USA probably could have won the nuclear war with losing only about few dozens of cities.
Europe would have been a nuclear wasteland, especially the border area between west and east, to stop the Soviet conventional forces, and pretty much make taking over any countries logistically impossible.
How would that have helped Hungary?
Egypt could close Suez Canal in case of WW3, especially if USA did not react to it by supporting Israel to threaten Egypt into not doing that freely.
Shah was a Muslim himself too. Of course islamists didn't think he was religious enough.
The Islamic State has arisen during Obama term. Same people who did Libya, the stupid Iran deal, the Russia reset, and cheered on Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt. Yes, a child making random decisions by throwing a coin would do better than a bunch of anticolonialist leftists.