Bill Clinton invades Afghanistan: 1999-2000

The World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the African embassy bombings in 98, and the bombing of the Cole in 2000 collectively gave the USA sufficient causus belli for Bill Clinton to seriously consider ordering the invasion of Afghanistan. At the same time, Clinton had try several times to kill Bin Laden, and stop Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorist plots.

So say between 1999 and 2000 (Like maybe a Cole style attack happen earlier on a US Navy Ship, and bin Laden was responsible for the bombing was known.) had pick to go for it, and the United States order a full on invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.

What happens now? Would it be more, or less successful? Affects on the 2000 election? World reactions for the US going into Afghanistan?
 
If the United States succeeded in what it set out to do, which was to capture or kill Osama bin-Laden and overthrow the Taliban, it would be good for Al Gore because it would be an additional victory on the part of the Clinton Administration and it might refute George W. Bush's arguments of weakness. Although, if the war is taking place in 1999, the Republicans may nominate someone else altogether. If Osama bin-Laden is not captured, Afghanistan may be seen as a liability to Gore, especially after Monica Lewinsky. Thus, a more "battle-hardened" veteran can win against Gore if they can capitalize off of Afghanistan and George W. Bush's record of not going Vietnam.
 
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The Republicans created a pretty successful narrative out of what they called Clinton's "foreign adventurism." This would probably feed into that. They would certainly bring out all of the "Graveyard of Empires" references they could. Even a short campaign would be open to criticism.

Say he goes in, takes out Bin Laden, gets out. They call it needlessly provocative and indicative of Clinton's lack of respect for national sovereignty.

Say he goes in, topples the Taliban, kills Bin Laden, and leaves. Well, that likely doesn't work, either. He's criticized for cutting and running, for not thinking things through (like in Somalia, or in Rwanda where intervention would have been preferable- bad instincts all around).

If he goes in and we get something roughly similar to what we have today where we're in it for the long haul, well that's imminently open to criticism. Republicans are perfectly capable of telling a Democrat he has no exit strategy if it serves their purpose.

Still, I'm inclined to agree with 297* that this likely helps Gore. Anything that gets him talking more about foreign policy and less about his social agenda is probably good for him in the context of the 2000 election. He's doubly helped with foreign policy being a particular weakness of Bush on the campaign trail. I doubt anything can derail him in the primaries, but this certainly all plays to McCain's strengths. If we have an active war, arguments about who takes the 3 am phone call become much more real. But is that enough to convince 1-in-3 Bush voters to switch to McCain? (That's about how many he'd need to win the primaries.) Seems like a tall order for an insurgent.

McCain honestly seems like a great general election candidate against Gore under these circumstances and it's easy to imagine him winning, even in the presence of an active war. Bush, though, seems weaker.
 
What would a Clinton invasion of Afghanistan in the late 90's do to the economy given the Clinton Administration seemed to work hard to create a balanced spreadsheet/surplus?

Could a Clinton distracted by a War avoid Monica Lewinsky entirely- different staff etc?
 
Ogrebear, Lewinsky was interning around 1995 though IIRC, whereas we are talking about Clinton invading Afghanistan in 1999-2000, which would be after Lewinskygate, so it averting Lewinskygate is out of the question.

Anyway, if the invasion is successful (especially if Bin Laden is caught or even killed and Al-Qaeda is also destroyed), then it could work to Gore's advantage in the 2000 election and maybe even help him win, but it could also be beneficial for the Republicans and Bush (assuming he is still nominated), like others in this thread have already stated. I don't think Al-Qaeda were regarded as a major threat back then, after all, so there's that.

If in an alternate timeline where Clinton did invade Afghanistan around 1999-2000 and destroy Al-Qaeda and capture/kill Bin Laden and it did come out that Al-Qaeda were planning to fly planes into the WTC, Pentagon and Washington though, then such an invasion would have been viewed far better in that case with hindsight. But that also depends on what post-Taliban Afghanistan is like in that case.
 
Ogrebear, Lewinsky was interning around 1995 though IIRC, whereas we are talking about Clinton invading Afghanistan in 1999-2000, which would be after Lewinskygate, so it averting Lewinskygate is out of the question.

Anyway, if the invasion is successful (especially if Bin Laden is caught or even killed and Al-Qaeda is also destroyed), then it could work to Gore's advantage in the 2000 election and maybe even help him win, but it could also be beneficial for the Republicans and Bush (assuming he is still nominated), like others in this thread have already stated. I don't think Al-Qaeda were regarded as a major threat back then, after all, so there's that.

If in an alternate timeline where Clinton did invade Afghanistan around 1999-2000 and destroy Al-Qaeda and capture/kill Bin Laden and it did come out that Al-Qaeda were planning to fly planes into the WTC, Pentagon and Washington though, then such an invasion would have been viewed far better in that case with hindsight. But that also depends on what post-Taliban Afghanistan is like in that case.

Bin Laden wasn't unknown after the embassy bombings. I was just watching a Law and Order from 1999 or so and Briscoe name-drops Bin Laden and I had to do a little double take. His death or capture would have been a positive thing for Clinton for a few news cycles- certainly a good bulletpoint for a list of his accomplishments. But probably not something to crow about for a secondary figure like Gore.

Maybe a more interesting question is what if the 9/11 event happens AFTER Bin Laden has been killed and Afghanistan invaded? Where does the US turn its rage?

Obviously IOTL we invaded Iraq for no particularly compelling reason, but because of its randomness there's no saying we'd do it again.
 
So what would a 1999 invasion of Afghanistan do to the economy?

Could America go in, get Bin Laden and get out without toppling the Taliban? Would they?

If America went in for what we call regime change now, could they get out or would they get invertabily bogged down?

If the invasion is to effect regime change after terrorist actions in/against American targets would their be such international support as post 9/11?
 
I think the tendency would be to overstate how one event would effect the economy. Consumer confidence up/down/the same? Probably the same. Investor attitudes bullish/bearish/the same? Eh, mostly the same. Employment? How many people do you think the military's going to need to snag over OTL 1999? Enough to really move the dial on wage growth? Government spending? Yeah, probably notched up if we're talking full regime change. But even that's not a huge indicator of economic strength post-Reagan.

My guess is after Clinton's earlier foreign adventures, he'd really want to keep this at assassination. But if we had a compelling reason to go in, I don't see why they wouldn't also get bogged down this time like IRL. If we go in after terrorist attacks we likely get a similar bump in international support to OTL. Probably more with Russia still being pretty friendly. Actually if Yeltsin goes all-in on this and the US starts pumping money into our comrade-in-arms, we could forestall the rise of Putin, that'd be pretty good.
 
Yeah Clinton probably doesn't need to talk to Pakistan, since he has Russia.
Putin still has a good chance of rising to power but, regardless, the relationship between Russia and US has potential to improve considerably compared to OTL.
 
Another thought - if Russia and India are made solid US allies, that could isolate China and Iran. China's reaction to this might be interesting.
 
Yeah Clinton probably doesn't need to talk to Pakistan, since he has Russia.
Putin still has a good chance of rising to power but, regardless, the relationship between Russia and US has potential to improve considerably compared to OTL.
American combat aircraft staging from Russia? Hard to imagine before the bombing of Yugoslavia, Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky would have a field day tearing Yeltsin a new one over his subservience to USA. After bombing of Yugoslavia it would have been a complete political suicide.
 
American combat aircraft staging from Russia? Hard to imagine before the bombing of Yugoslavia, Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky would have a field day tearing Yeltsin a new one over his subservience to USA. After bombing of Yugoslavia it would have been a complete political suicide.
The War on Terror could have united the two countries.
 
You mean USA helping Russia in Chechnia in exchange for Russia helping USA in Afganistan? I don't think Congress would approve.
 
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