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Would Gore invade Iraq had he won in 2000?

TheKennedyMachine

TheKennedyMachine

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It's a pretty common assumption, it seems, among various Gore 2000 victory timelines that, had the man won, the American invasion of Iraq would not have occurred.

Nonetheless, in somewhat unrelated research for a school paper, I've found that most Clinton-era sources considered the VP the most hawkish member of the administration, and on Iraq in particular. Gore had voted for the Gulf War in 1991, one of few Democrats to do so, and a fact which likely contributed to his selection for the ticket. He advocated for cruise missile strikes on the nation in 1993, after a foiled assassination attempt on Bush Sr. Contemporaries saw him as the driving force behind the bombing campaign in 1998. And, in 2000, his foreign policy message was largely one of continuity with the Clinton administration.

Is it possible that in a timeline where Gore wins in 2000 over Bush, Iraq is still invaded?
 
It's one we've gone and back and forwards over a bunch over the years (here for one and also here).

He was a hawk on Iraq, but he also was against the invasion as it happened and wouldn't have quite as many hawks around him as Bush did.

You can argue either way, in favour of Gore going to war you have that in Feb 2002, he said that Iraq represented a virulent threat that could do the USA great harm and a final reckoning with them must be kept on the table. In September 2002, he said that the evidence about wmds were impossible to deny and it had to be assumed that the programme would continue as long as Hussein was in power. I think there'd be huge pressure on Gore to attack Hussein, whether or not he actually would. There were voices on all sides in the american corridors of power who really wanted a second gulf war. It wasn't just Bush, though the timing and manner of it was him. Even in OTL, when Gore had lost the election he felt the need to word his opposition to the invasion in a relatively hawkish manner. And you are still going to have Blair involved, who had been calling for hard action against Iraq since the 90s.

On the other side of the coin, people like Leon Fuerth were much less hawkish than the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld. Gore was surrounded by people who had much less of a personal grudge than Bush's people. They might still be looking for an excuse for a scrap but they're less likely to go in in 2003 when Afghanistan is still happening and the UN/EU are against it. It's those stipulations that led to Gore going 'no' in OTL and while yes he was out of power and had reason to disagree with Bush cos it was Bush that might still be the case if he is in power.

If I was writing it, I'd probably avoid a first term invasion but then have some sort of trigger point in the second term which means Gore goes in, which threads the needle between the two extreme scenarios of Gore=Bush and Gore = a complete peacenik.

But like honestly I could buy him not going in at all and I could buy him going in 2003. Whatever makes the best story. I don't think you're out on a limb either way.
 
I think one underrated possibility is that he goes in but under non-9/11 induced circumstances-say, he's not surrounded by enough people to go "take invasion off the table" but he is surrounded by people who are sufficiently non-blinkered to get that the evidence for continued WMDs is shaky to nonexistent. Which leads to him being canny enough to wait until Saddam does something stupidly provocative that everyone non-US/UK agrees is reasonable justification to invade.
 
Roger II said:
Which leads to him being canny enough to wait until Saddam does something stupidly provocative that everyone non-US/UK agrees is reasonable justification to invade.
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What might that be?

And by the way, that's no guarantee against an ultimate failure. Look at Afghanistan - an invasion about as justified as can be against a criminally negligent regime. Still didn't make the country occupiable, reformable, fixable.
 
raharris1973 said:
What might that be?

And by the way, that's no guarantee against an ultimate failure. Look at Afghanistan - an invasion about as justified as can be against a criminally negligent regime. Still didn't make the country occupiable, reformable, fixable.
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If the point is Gore is an internationalist who would want eu/un support before invading than Libya is a precedent. Some arab spring kind of thing might well see far more international support for intervention.

Doesn't mean it won't be a disaster, like you say, but it removes otl gore's primary complaint about the invasion, which was the diplomatic isolation.
 
I always like to imagine VP Lieberman getting those SDUSA types into an Al Gore administration, and them causing Al Gore to still go to war with Iraq.


Gary Oswald said:
If I was writing it, I'd probably avoid a first term invasion but then have some sort of trigger point in the second term which means Gore goes in, which threads the needle between the two extreme scenarios of Gore=Bush and Gore = a complete peacenik.
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What would such a trigger point even be? The more the years pass, the more Americans’ appetite for war with Iraq decreases. In that regard, Bush went in at the perfect time.
 
Catalunya said:
What would such a trigger point even be? The more the years pass, the more Americans’ appetite for war with Iraq decreases. In that regard, Bush went in at the perfect time.
Click to expand...
There was a whole thing involving Saddam trying to shoot down US planes patrolling the no-fly zone. Maybe that could be a possible flashpoint.
 
We also have to take into account that the Iraq War was drummed out over fears of where Bin Laden might be hiding next after Tora Bora --- is it possible that Gore would have killed Bin Laden in Tora Bora by 2001? I find it unlikely he will make the same mistakes there with Bush.
 
Honestly that changes a lot with Afghanistan too-before we're too deep into nation building stuff, "OBL dead" means we have a lot more scope to declare victory and just yeet.
 
Roger II said:
Honestly that changes a lot with Afghanistan too-before we're too deep into nation building stuff, "OBL dead" means we have a lot more scope to declare victory and just yeet.
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That’s true! I’m unsure what that would mean for Al-Qaeda, it’s possible they fall apart immediately, but it could very much be possible they’re resolve is only strengthened.
 
There’s a problem here for Gore – he was VP during the Clinton years, which means he will certainly be attacked for not taking the threat from 9/11 seriously and/or not doing anything about OBL prior to the attacks. (This won’t be very fair, but it is somewhat fairer than people doing the same to Bush in OTL.) Gore will be under immense pressure to do something effective, as he will get a lot of the blame for the attacks being carried out. This means he might well be pushed towards more severe actions in Iraq, particularly if the first moves in Afghanistan are as inconclusive as OTL.

Chris
 
Roger II said:
Which leads to him being canny enough to wait until Saddam does something stupidly provocative that everyone non-US/UK agrees is reasonable justification to invade.
Click to expand...

It does seem pretty plausible that Saddam does something in Gore's eight years to at least justify a bombing campaign.
 
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