I have always assumed that if Gore had been elected president in 2000, he would not have gone to war with Iraq. After all, as a private citizen, he denounced the war even when many of his fellow Democrats were supporting it, and even when it had strong popular support.
However, that does not end the question. After all, presidents may be under constraints that their private-citizen critics are not. Thus, one should at least be open to the argument apparently made in Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence. By Frank P. Harvey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011 that for "structural" reasons a President Gore would indeed have gone to war with Saddam--whatever private-citizen Gore said (and sincerely believed) in OTL. I have not read Harvey's book, but from a symposium discussing the book, here is Bruce Gillie's summary:
"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."
In the same symposium, Elizabeth Saunders rebuts Harvey as follows: "The difference between the Gore and Bush stances on nation building has important implications for the way we set up the counterfactual of a Gore administration confronting Iraq because strategy and war planning con strain the options that presidents consider. Arguably, the relevant decision Gore faced was between intervening with a plan for a potentially lengthy postwar period and not intervening at all. For Bush, in contrast, the choice was between what he thought would be a limited intervention and no intervention."
Unfortunately the symposium does not seem to be available online any more except to subscribers: http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...3712&fulltextType=MR&fileId=S153759271300087X Saunders discusses her own contribution to the symposium at http://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/2013/07/would-al-gore-fought-the-iraq-war.html ("Leaders can be grouped into one of two categories: those who believe that threats come from other states’ domestic institutions, and thus are more likely to seek to change those institutions, and those who focus on external state behavior and thus prefer more limited intervention options. In the 2000 campaign, Bush made no secret of his preference for the surgical option and his disdain for nation-building, while during the campaign and in the run-up to the war, Gore repeatedly mentioned the importance of nation-building and following through in Iraq. This is not to say that Gore would have been any more successful even with a different strategy – in fact, his views on threats and strategy might have led him to avoid war. Intervention strategy cannot be separated from the decision to intervene in the first place: if you believe that a nation-building effort is necessary, but will be quite difficult, you may be reluctant to intervene at all. In Gore’s case, his views on nation-building and the difficulties of fighting in Iraq might have led him to stay out of Iraq, just as Bush’s embrace of a limited approach helped propel the US into war.")
I have not read Harvey's book, and until I do, I am reluctant to comment in detail but one thing that occurs to me: if McCain had won in 2008 and had resorted to force against Iran before 2012, some political scientist would doubtless have published a book arguing that for structural reasons a President Obama would also have had to do the same during *his* first term...
However, that does not end the question. After all, presidents may be under constraints that their private-citizen critics are not. Thus, one should at least be open to the argument apparently made in Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence. By Frank P. Harvey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011 that for "structural" reasons a President Gore would indeed have gone to war with Saddam--whatever private-citizen Gore said (and sincerely believed) in OTL. I have not read Harvey's book, but from a symposium discussing the book, here is Bruce Gillie's summary:
"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."
In the same symposium, Elizabeth Saunders rebuts Harvey as follows: "The difference between the Gore and Bush stances on nation building has important implications for the way we set up the counterfactual of a Gore administration confronting Iraq because strategy and war planning con strain the options that presidents consider. Arguably, the relevant decision Gore faced was between intervening with a plan for a potentially lengthy postwar period and not intervening at all. For Bush, in contrast, the choice was between what he thought would be a limited intervention and no intervention."
Unfortunately the symposium does not seem to be available online any more except to subscribers: http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...3712&fulltextType=MR&fileId=S153759271300087X Saunders discusses her own contribution to the symposium at http://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/2013/07/would-al-gore-fought-the-iraq-war.html ("Leaders can be grouped into one of two categories: those who believe that threats come from other states’ domestic institutions, and thus are more likely to seek to change those institutions, and those who focus on external state behavior and thus prefer more limited intervention options. In the 2000 campaign, Bush made no secret of his preference for the surgical option and his disdain for nation-building, while during the campaign and in the run-up to the war, Gore repeatedly mentioned the importance of nation-building and following through in Iraq. This is not to say that Gore would have been any more successful even with a different strategy – in fact, his views on threats and strategy might have led him to avoid war. Intervention strategy cannot be separated from the decision to intervene in the first place: if you believe that a nation-building effort is necessary, but will be quite difficult, you may be reluctant to intervene at all. In Gore’s case, his views on nation-building and the difficulties of fighting in Iraq might have led him to stay out of Iraq, just as Bush’s embrace of a limited approach helped propel the US into war.")
I have not read Harvey's book, and until I do, I am reluctant to comment in detail but one thing that occurs to me: if McCain had won in 2008 and had resorted to force against Iran before 2012, some political scientist would doubtless have published a book arguing that for structural reasons a President Obama would also have had to do the same during *his* first term...
