Wouldn't Bush's post-9/11 strength image still be enough for him to win, though? Heck, didn't Saddam Hussein even allow the inspectors back in--albeit in a somewhat limited role--in late 2002?You are talking about such an enormous POD that I can only say Bush would more likely then not lose 2004 if he backed down. Saddam would be laughing and waving his sword at the US and Bush would be toast.
You mean that it would make her 3 AM ad work better in this TL?She probably does. The Iraq War held massive appeal in both parties before the invasion. if anything, the meanace of a surviving Sadaam's Iraq would likely give her a boost over Obama and allow her to sail to a quick victory in the nominating contest.
Wouldn't Bush's post-9/11 strength image still be enough for him to win, though? Heck, didn't Saddam Hussein even allow the inspectors back in--albeit in a somewhat limited role--in late 2002?
Wouldn't Bush's post-9/11 strength image still be enough for him to win, though? Heck, didn't Saddam Hussein even allow the inspectors back in--albeit in a somewhat limited role--in late 2002?
The most plausible POD for this line of thought is probably that Bush goes for a fairly fierce bombing campaign instead of a ground invasion and forces Saddam to relent and fully open the country, allowing the inspection to be completed and keeping Bush's tough guy image intact without involving the U.S. in a protracted conflict.
The question is exactly what happens with Iraq without the U.S. invading. I wonder if Iran wouldn't do it if they knew Saddam didn't have anything. That, after all, was why he wanted to maintain ambiguity, to deter them.
That would create a united Shiite power bloc of Syria, Iraq (maybe under a Sadr puppet Regime), Iran, and Hezbollah. And that has its own ramifications.
Didn't Clinton win back in 1992 due to the economy, though?For a short time, but he always did that then restricted their access to sites then kicked them out.
Once the division's start leaving Kuwait the weapons inspectors will all be forced to leave and Saddam declares victory and with no Bin Laden and Saddam coming out and winning the showdown Bush is toast and Dems ride his precieved weakness on national security like they did his father.
Take that and move it up to 2004 being voiced by a Kerry or another hawkish dem and the Presidency is his.
Didn't Clinton win back in 1992 due to the economy, though?
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Hmm, good points. A ground invasion to secure limited objectives and make Saddam blink without overthrowing him might do it, but that somehow doesn't seem realistic in most circumstances.
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They vetoed exactly that approach IOTL because it was too slow and sent in SF to work with the Northern Alliance. Even without Rumsfeld as SecDef I have a very hard time seeing them going with that.
Remember, America was just attacked in the bloodiest and most shocking way in its history by foreigners (9/11 was a lot deadlier than Pearl Harbor). The public was baying for blood and probably more importantly we didn't know what al-Qaeda might still have up its sleeve. With what we know today they probably wouldn't have been able to pull off another stunt in rapid succession to 9/11 but Bush and Co. didn't necessarily know that. The perceived need was for the U.S. to quickly and decisively eliminate or at least severely disrupt al-Qaeda command and control, logistics, and training networks to make sure they couldn't try again.
So in between that and the political considerations (this could compromise the GOP right before or during the midterms) and the urgency of the mission I can't see them going with that approach.
Slower, but would have kept the Afghan mission from becoming a colossal failure. While people like to rag on how horrible the Iraq mission was planned I actually give it higher marks then the Afghan plan. The Afghan mission gets much more political cover for its mistakes, but those mistake were massive.
No AQI/ISIS if you stop Zarqawi from reaching Iran. The Taliban and AQ also ends in 2002 as viable forces if we are able to put up a net before we attack.
We let politics override mission planning and the world is paying the price for it. Never did we have that much of the world's Sunni jihadists all in one place.
Remember how long it took to strike back from Pearl Harbor even a token strike? Sometimes waiting and having a military build up though maddening is the best policy and it was after 911 it was. Heck we could have even pushed our allies to build up as well and most probably would have done it.
Secretary Gates was also right we should have had full on declarations of war not AuF.
Wasn't Clinton himself ambivalent on the Gulf War, though?That was part of it, but far from the the full story though.
Clinton and Gore tore Bush up on being weak with Saddam and in the end in 1992 Saddam had slaughtered the hundreds of thousands of people we asked to rise up and was celebrating his victory over America and its dozens strong nation alliance and Americans were pissed off about it.
National security looked like a strong card of Bush in 1991, but by mid 1992 he looked quite weak in that area to the public. Bush had no come back to explain why Saddam was still there waging his sword at us come 1992 and that and the economy did him in.
Having Massoud survive, while helpful, might not be the game-changer that you think it is; after all, the large issues of Afghan warlords and corruption would have still had to be dealt with!I don't know about no AQI/ISIS. There were other people, especially Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who could have taken his place. Though presumably that doesn't become relevant anyway because IATL there's no Iraq War.
I can see your argument but I think there's more hindsight than you're allowing guiding this battleplan. Bush and Co. knew Bin Laden was shaping the battlespace even before the invasion by assassinating Ahmad Shah and dispersing assets. They could reasonably have presumed he would continue to do so while they built up if he could, they were worried his network would disperse and key targets would potentially be lost, and they weren't sure if al-Qaeda could launch more attacks if they waited.
The main reason we didn't strike back after Pearl Harbor was capability; we didn't have that many hulls yet compared to what we did later on in the war and we were on a far lower war footing than the Japanese were. Even then we struck back pretty quickly. Coral Sea was five months after Pearl Harbor, Midway was eight months. If Bush had waited that long to invade after 9/11 he would have done so in early-mid 2002, not late 2002 as your scenario says.
In hindsight losing Ahmad Shah a day before 9/11 really f-ed us. The al-Qaeda assassination plot was a pretty chance thing and with him in charge the Northern Alliance probably could have been a lot more effective and reconstruction a lot more successful.