alternatehistory.com

Hey all--longtime lurker, first-time poster, ect.

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 père. 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.

Now, it's possible, as some histories seem to imply, that Gore's positions from 1992-2000 were his attempt at staking out some bureaucratic turf, and not necessarily reflective of his true beliefs. It's also clear that there isn't always continuity between the foreign policy positions of a vice-president and that of a commander in chief---witness VP Nixon advocating nuclear strikes in Vietnam, President Nixon trying to end the war.

At least for me, however, it seems clear that September 11th changed the American foreign policy calculus as to the amount of risk it was willing to tolerate from rogue states. While the form of invasion would likely have proven different (more multilaterally based, more reliant on airpower?), that intervention would come had Gore been elected actually seems far more likely than not.

Thoughts?
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