How realistic would it be that Gore invades Iraq if he had won?

Bill Clinton passed the Iraq Liberation act in 1998, would Gore, if he had succeeded Clinton, had gone into Iraq?
 

nbcman

Donor
Bill Clinton passed the Iraq Liberation act in 1998, would Gore, if he had succeeded Clinton, had gone into Iraq?

The Iraqi Liberation Act specifically excluded the use of US Military forces:

SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise
speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in
section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.

Where section 4(a) is as follows:

SEC. 4. ASSISTANCE TO SUPPORT A TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ.

(a) Authority To Provide Assistance.--The President may provide to
the Iraqi democratic opposition organizations designated in accordance
with section 5 the following assistance:
(1) Broadcasting assistance.--(A) Grant assistance to such
organizations for radio and television broadcasting by such
organizations to Iraq.
(B) <<NOTE: Appropriation authorization.>> There is
authorized to be appropriated to the United States Information
Agency $2,000,000 for fiscal year 1999 to carry out this
paragraph.
(2) Military <<NOTE: President.>> assistance.--(A) The
President is authorized to direct the drawdown of defense
articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense, defense
services of the Department of Defense, and military education
and training for such organizations.
(B) The aggregate value (as defined in section 644(m) of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961) of assistance provided under
this paragraph may not exceed $97,000,000.

At best there could have been some limited 'defense services' and 'military education and training' which might have involved US forces deployed in a training role in Iraq but no way would there be boots on the ground in Iraq in a combat role as a result of this Act.
 
Not impossible, but not likely either. Saddam would've had to do something really stupid for Gore to invade.
 

jahenders

Banned
Not a chance.

Iraq 2003 was 100% Bush/Cheney.

Afghanistan? In a red hot second.

While it seems unlikely, I don't think it's 'not a chance' unlikely.

If Gore had won, he'd be dealing with the anger, fear, and uncertainty found after 9/11, he's going to be in a different mindset than we've seen him. Additionally, he's going to be getting almost the same intel as Bush did. The only differences might be the caveats applied to the intel by his senior staff (and those may not all be different) and his perceptions and decision.

I would tend to agree that he's far less likely to invade Iraq, but he'll likely feel he has to do SOMETHING re Iraq (other than just continuing no fly monitoring as we had been for years). I'd guess that he might try to increase sanctions, push for more inspections, and possibly consider airstrikes if the Iraqis don't cooperate. However, if we get engaged in Afghanistan and it then becomes clear that Saddam is supporting our enemies there, that could escalate. Eventually, then, the combination of air strikes and sanctions might eventually cause the collapse of the Baath regime or a splintering. The US could potentially send in troops to support some group or 'maintain order.' If we get there, then you still have terrorists, civil war, etc, so we could wind up with an Iraqi War-Lite.
 
Would he invade Iraq? No. Would he bomb Iraq for failing to allow in weapons inspectors? Maybe.

Bush invaded Iraq because he didn't want to lose face again after being humiliated by the surprise attack of 9/11. Probably also suffering from PTSD after being the commander and chief which allowed that carnage to happen in an American city. It was also out of paranoia. America was suffering shell shock from those attacks and wasn't collectively rational. Invasion of another nearby adversary to reassert its self-image makes logical sense.
 

Wallet

Banned
Gore was VP for 8 years. He had a lot more experience then Bush.

He would also had the same people working for him as Clinton. They wouldn't be new and would have gotten Intel on 9/11.

Also, the Bush family had this thing with Iraq starting with George H. W Bush. Plus Cheney's business connections in Iraq.
 
Well of course if Gore had won he would have stopped 9/11, solved global warming and initiated paradise on earth...

<sarcasm filter engaged>
 
I am inclined to believe he wouldn't (after all, as a private citizen he opposed the decision to go to war) but Frank P. Harvey has written a book--*Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence*--to argue that he would. See the thread at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...gore-would-have-gone-to-war-with-iraq.306846/

See http://home.gwu.edu/~esaunder/HarveySymposium.pdf for a symposiumm on Harvey. In that sympoisum, Gillwy summarizes Harvey'ss arguments as follows: ""Laid out in meticulous fashion, Harvey’s book provides the evidence that Gore was long a liberal hawk, especially on Iraq (Chap. 2); that his advisors and likely cabinet members were no less so (Chap. 3); that bipartisan congressional pressures to do something after 9/11 were immense (Chap. 4); that intelligence failures were not caused by Bush but by the anxieties that followed 9/11 (Chap. 5), as was public support for war against Iraq (Chap. 6); that UN weapons inspectors and key allies, including not just the UK but also Germany and France, agreed that Iraq had committed serial and serious breaches of United Nation containment provisions (Chap. 7); and that if there is a “first image” leadership story to be told about Iraq, it should center not on Bush but on Saddam, whose personalistic regime was deeply war prone..

"The reason, Harvey argues, is path dependence: Once “President Gore” had decided to pursue a coercive diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis through the UN-—a strategy he had long endorsed and which he would have driven more forcefully in cabinet deliberations than Bush did--there could have been no turning back if the strategy failed. The intelligence community, stung by its 9/11 failure and searching for the most likely source of another one, would have produced largely the same dossiers in cooperation with key allies."

See Harvey's abbreviated summary of his own views in "President Al Gore and the 2003 Iraq War: A Counterfactual Critique of Conventional “W”isdom" at https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.n...ritique_of_Conventional_Wisdom.pdf?1413661643
 
Bit of a tangent, but the interesting thing is that if Gore doesn't get into Iraq what would have happened for sure is that we would have ended up invading Libya. Gaddafi was actively developing nuclear weapons and had chemical weapons at the time we went into Iraq in OTL. Saddam getting taken out scared the piss out of him and he handed over his stuff to the U.N. It also generally made him behave a bit better and discouraged him from trying any more antics like the Gulf of Sidra line of death or Lockerbie or the disco bombing. When that happened, the inspectors were actually shocked by how far along his program was. I think I remember reading that Gaddafi was four years away from developing nukes when he let the inspectors in.

If Saddam isn't taken out then Gaddafi is going to keep developing nuclear weapons and keep his chemical WMDs and is just generally going to be more brazen.

There's only one way that ends: U.N. sanctioned American invasion and occupation.

Still better than the Iraq invasion by miles because it's less of a sectarian animal house, it doesn't cost us the moral high ground, and it probably enjoys international support (everyone in OTL was onboard with preventing Gaddafi from getting nukes), but it definitely wouldn't have been a walk through a rose garden.
 
Iraq was a war of choice, and it was a war of choice that was totally Bush and Cheney. This has been stated, but needs to be hammered home. Prior to September 11th, the Bush White House was already hell bent on trying to get the United States involved in a war with Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. In addition, Iraq was a traditional Neocon target, and the Bush administration was nothing if not the Neocon administration. This is why the "Axis of Evil" was Iran, Iraq and North Korea. As stated by Christopher Hitchens, these are nations which had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or the war against it, nor did they have a relationship of alliance or positive relations with one another, nor were they engaged in much more than traditional saber rattling against the United States. They were simply an old Neocon list of enemies. For the same reason that list was superimposed on the War on Terror, so was a war with Iraq. September 11th gave an air of respectability to things that otherwise would have been ridiculous.
 
I agree with David T, and more to the point the party establishment and Washington consensus at the time was quite bent on removal of Saddam somehow, including from Gore's people. This despite them having to have been aware from foreign intelligence that the case being presented was flimsy. It was not all neocon dark magic. But Gore might have not gone about removing Saddam via invasion initially.
 
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-23-gore_x.htm
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-23-gore-text_x.htm

In terms of public and political mood, feeling that Hussein was bad and should not be in power in an ideal world is not the same as saying the United States should engage in a preemptive war, invade and occupy the nation, remove the leadership, and engage in "nation building". In it's perception and actions toward Iraq, the Bush administration was engaging in Neoconservative thinking and Neoconservative policy. It is also important to note that the public sentiment to do what Bush ended up doing in Iraq is because the administration actively created a narrative and pushed a message, which the news media itself went along with, which created that public sentiment. The public hated Saddam, but the administration created a sentiment that Iraq was tied to terrorism and 9/11, that the threat was imminent from Iraq, and a sentiment for an immediate war. Iraq in it's time and place cannot be taken out of context. The Bush administration, as can be reviewed in the historical facts, had an interest before 9/11 in doing what it did in Iraq, interpreted information in a bias to support that policy, presented that interpretation to the American public in such a way as to support it's goal, disregarded information that ran contrary to what it wanted to assume, and disregarded or let go those in the administration who were critical of a war with Iraq or were critical of the assumptions the administration made about a war in Iraq. Everything that would have avoided such a war or would have properly prepared the United States for a military action were disregarded. I will not let up on this, because it is accurate: administration policy and the Iraq War were pursued from a school of Neoconservative thinking because that was the thinking of the administration and the people appointed by and advising President Bush. That thinking was a naively utopian and overtly gung-ho view of very clearly defined good guys/bad guys in a world of moral absolutes, and we can get rid of the bad guys by military force like in WW2, and we will be greeted as liberators.

On a note of personal bias, I dislike the mood I'm beginning to sense around this topic; not in terms of this thread, but in a general sense. That mood being one that the history that unfolded was an inevitability, and that believing the contrary is wishful thinking or political bias. I did do a google search of "Al Gore Iraq" and what comes up is Al Gore would of course go into Iraq, based on that one source mentioned here. And I feel that it's popularity is contrarian in the worst sense. Not in the sense of looking for a nuanced view and understanding the depth and complexity of what is involved beyond a simpler narrative. I have been called a contrarian, and I take offense because I feel I try to take a nuanced view instead of just being contradictory, which is what I think most use that word for. Rather, I mean contrarian in the worst sense in that it is different from conventional wisdom, so it is unique and appealing, and is popular largely for that reason. That is not to say I disregard the opinions here as historical hipsterism, and therefore wrong. However, that is my inkling and worry about that as a budding historical narrative.
 
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Gore criticizes Bush on more than just the timing of the war. He criticizes him on the administration's entire conceptualization of a war with Iraq. Two issues: Firstly, Gore is making these statements in the context, the narrative, and the terms the administration had already crafted in regards to Iraq. Therefore, they can be used in terms of psychoanalysis, but need to be taken in that context. Gore is no longer vice president, with access to information and advisers. He is not making policy decisions or crafting the historical narrative up to this point. He is simply seeing this from the perspective of a private citizen who had formerly been in government, and the narrative at the time in public discourse and the media was extremely biased. Secondly, the murky or general idea that Saddam Hussein was bad and should be removed from power remains an issue in Gore, but seems no more so one than under Clinton. Gore sees Iraq's violation of international law as a problem, but a secondary interest in the war on terror rather than an element of it, and believes that any effort against Iraq requires international consensus and UN resolution. Otherwise, it is damning to international goodwill and support for the war on terror. And Gore states that the Bush administration, via it's focus on Iraq, has squandered that already. To paraphrase Robert McNamara, when you lack the support of your allies it will, or at least should, make you assess the situation and consider why you lack that support. This was a concern for Gore where it was not one for Bush. This is not to say there will be no action against Iraq necessarily, but something on the order of air strikes or other military operations is much different from a war. Certainly from the war of 2003 compared to the war in 1991. And Gore criticizes the preemptive war doctrine of the administration. Taking this back to a newly inaugurated Gore in 2001, with access to the information and advisers as he would appoint them, I cannot see him pursuing a war against Iraq. I can see him making airstrikes, I can see him making other military strike operations as punishment for violation or perceived violation of the truce. In context, were Gore to have an interest in action more intense than that, he would seek international consensus and support, UN resolution and support, and Congressional support. And by perceiving Iraq as a secondary issue to the War on Terror rather than part of the War on Terror, it takes the wind out of the sails for support. Gore states in closing that if the United States feels Saddam Hussein presents an imminent threat, it may feel impatient for war, but international support requires the United States to take other steps short of or justifying that action.

EDIT:
In general terms, I argue that speech presents the alternate approach of Al Gore towards Iraq as methodical and analytical in a way that the Bush approach was not, because Bush had a set goal in doing what he ended up doing in Iraq.
 
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Somewhere we need to point out that the damn sanctions were more harmful than many wars have been.

Because our UN sanctions included food and medicine for crying out loud. Different people have done estimates just on the loss of life to children from 1991 to 2003, and it's not good.
 
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