Rethinking Gore-War: Counterfactuals and the 2003 Iraq War

ABSTRACTThis paper offers a constructivist critique of Frank Harvey’s ‘Gore-War’ counterfactual, in which he argues that the hypothetical President Al Gore also would have gone to war with Iraq. Harvey overlooks how the George W. Bush administration shaped the structural context in which it acted in ways that made war increasingly likely. I trace two key phases in the road to war in which this dynamic occurred: 1. The half-year after 9/11 in which Bush established Iraq as the centerpiece of his response to terrorism. 2. The period from fall 2002 to early 2003 in which Bush pursued the strategy of ‘coercive diplomacy’ in a manner that all but predetermined the failure of inspections. Using historical evidence about the views of Gore, his likely advisors, and the Democratic policy establishment, I argue for the plausibility of the ‘Gore-Peace’ counterfactual in which President Gore shaped the context of decision-making on Iraq differently than Bush, prioritized Iraq less, and thereby avoided generating pressure or momentum for war. I conclude with reflections on this argument’s implications for counterfactual methodology, historiography, and policy.KEYWORDS: agent-structurecounterfactualsGeorge W. BushIraq WarWar on Terror AcknowledgmentsThank you to Theo Milonopoulos, David Logan, Michael Brenes, Jesse Tumblin, and Andrew Stigler for advice on this article.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Richard Ned Lebow, Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 44; Steve Kornacki, ‘Why President Gore Might Have Gone into Iraq After 9/11, Too,’ Salon.com, August 30, 2011 (accessed April 5, 2023).2 David Dessler, ‘What’s at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate,’ International Organization 43/3 (Summer 1989), 466-68; Robert Jervis, ‘Do Leaders Matter and How Would We Know?’ Security Studies 22, no. 2 (2013): 153-179; Walter Carlsnaes, ‘The Agency-Structure Problem in Foreign Policy Analysis,’ International Studies Quarterly 36, no. 3 (September 1992), 245-270.3 Frank Harvey Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic, and Evidence (New York: Cambridge University Press 2011), 1-8.4 Harvey, Iraq War, 140, 284.5 Ibid., 34-37.6 On this ‘process tracing’ method, see: James Mahoney, ‘Process-Tracing and Historical Explanation,’ Security Studies 24, no. 2 (2015), 204.7 David Houghton, ‘Reinvigorating the Study of Foreign Policy Decision Making: Toward a Constructivist Approach,’ Foreign Policy Analysis 3, no. 1 (January 2007), 27-30; Alexander Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,’ International Organization 41, no. 3 (2009), 335-370; Jutta Weldes, ‘Constructing National Interests,’ European Journal of International Relations 2, no. 3 (1996), 275-281.8 Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin, eds., Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1996), 19.9 Tetlock and Belkin, Counterfactual Thought Experiments, 8; Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 30-38.10 Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Counterfactuals, History and Fiction,’ Historical Social Research 34/2 (2009): 57-60; James Fearon, ‘Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science,’ World Politics 43/2 (January 1991): 171-180; Jack Levy, ‘Counterfactuals, Causal Inference, and History Analysis,’ Security Studies 24, no. 3 (2015), 378-402.11 Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 38-39.12 Mahoney, “Process Tracing,” 212.13 Harvey, Iraq War, 47-106; Al Gore, ‘Speech at the Commonwealth Club of California,’ September 23, 2002, in The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions, ed. Micah Sifry and Christopher Cerf (New York: Touchstone Books 2003), 325-32.14 Harvey, Iraq War, 47-55, 147-180,15 Ibid., 5, 40-46.16 Ibid., 241-64.17 Ibid., 271-75.18 James Fearon, ‘Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,’ The American Political Science Review 88, no. 3 (September 1994), 577-592.19 Ibid., 1-5.20 Ibid., 19.21 Ibid., 126.22 Ibid., 8, 29.23 Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha and Christopher Linebarger, ‘Presidential and Media Leadership of Public Opinion on Iraq,’ Foreign Policy Analysis 10/4 (October 2014): 352-53; John Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (New York: Harper Collins 1984), 23; Lydia Andrade and Garry Young, ‘Presidential Agenda-Setting: Influences on the Emphasis of Foreign Policy,’ Political Research Quarterly 49/3 (September 1999): 591-95.24 Matthew Baum and Tim Groeling, ‘Reality Asserts Itself: Public Opinion on Iraq and the Elasticity of Reality,’ International Organization 64/3 (Summer 2010): 469; Amy Gershkoff and Shana Kushner, ‘Shaping Public Opinion: The 9/11-Iraq Connection in the Bush Administration’s Rhetoric,’ Perspectives on Politics 3/3 (September 2005): 526-29.25 Joseph Stieb, The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003 (New York: Cambridge University Press 2021), 2-4; Project for a New American Century, ‘Letter to Bill Clinton,’ January 26, 1998, informationclearinghouse.org, accessed May 5, 2021, www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5527.thm.26 Michael Mazarr, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs 2019), 128-37. See also: Memorandum, Paul Wolfowitz to Donald Rumsfeld, ‘War on Terror-Coordination with Joint Staff,’ September 17, 2001, Digital National Security Archive, Targeting Iraq Part 1, 1.27 Hugh Shelton, interview by Russell Riley, May 29, 2007, William J. Clinton Presidential History Project, Miller Center, 94.28 Douglas Little, Us v. Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press 2016), 156; Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press 2004), 24-25.29 Melvyn Leffler, Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq (New York: Oxford University Press 2023), 99-100.30 Leffler, Confronting Saddam Hussein, 129-30.31 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 113.32 Memoranda, Tony Blair to George Bush, ‘The War Against Terrorism: The Second Phase,’ December 4, 2001, House of Commons, ‘Report of the Iraq Inquiry,’ 367-70.33 Memoranda, Christopher Meyer to Tony Blair, April 1, 2002, House of Commons, ‘Report of the Iraq Inquiry,’ ‘Development of UK Strategy and Options, January to April 2002,’ 481.34 Glenn Kessler, ‘U.S. Decision on Iraq Has Puzzling Past,’ Washington Post, January 12, 2003, A1; Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 172-175.35 Ronald Brownstein, ‘Bush Warns Iraq to Permit U.N. Inspection of Weapons,’ Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2001, A1; George W. Bush ‘The State of the Union Address,’ whitehouse.archives.gov, January 29, 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html (accessed March 12, 2023).36 George W. Bush, ‘Graduation Speech at West Point,’ June 1, 2002, in The Iraq Papers, eds. John Ehrenberg, Patrice McSherrey, Jose Sanchez, and Caroleen Sayej, (New York: Oxford University Press 2010), 66.37 Mazarr, ‘Iraq War and Agenda-Setting,’ 13-14; Gershkoff and Kushner, ‘Shaping Public Opinion,’ 526-29.38 Gershkoff and Kushner, ‘Shaping Public Opinion,’ 525.39 Bush, ‘Graduation Speech at West Point;’ Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush, ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,’ September 2002, in Ehrenberg, McSherrey, Sanchez, and Sayej, The Iraq Papers, 83.40 Gore, ‘Speech at the Commonwealth Club;’ Lawrence Freedman, ‘Prevention, Not Preemption,’ The Washington Quarterly 26, no. 2 (March 2003), 106.41 Bush, ‘In the President’s Words,’ February 27, 2003; Paul Wolfowitz, ‘Remarks by Paul Wolfowitz,’ IraqWatch.org, October 16, 2002, www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Pentagon/dod-wolfowitz-101602.htm (accessed March 10, 2023).42 Ahsan Butt, ‘Why Did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003?’ Security Studies 28, no. 2 (Winter 2019), 250-85.43 Andrew Flibbert, ‘The Road to Baghdad: Ideas and Intellectuals in Explanations of the Iraq War,’ Security Studies 15/no. 2 (2006), 328.44 Harvey, Iraq War, 207.45 House of Commons, ‘Report of the Iraq Inquiry,’ 2016, Vol. 1, Section 3.1, ‘Letter from Blair to Bush,’ October 11, 2001, 337-339.46 House of Commons, ‘Report of the Iraq Inquiry,’ 2016, Vol. 1, Section 3.1, ‘Memoranda from Blair to Bush,’ December 4, 2001, 367-270.47 Mark Danner, ed. The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War’s Buried History (New York: New York Review of Books, 2006).48 House of Commons, ‘Report of the Iraq Inquiry,’ 2016, Vol. 1, Section 3.1, ‘Memoranda from Jonathan Powell to Blair,’ 356-359.49 Stieb, Regime Change Consensus, 216-217.50 Memorandum, Douglas Feith and Peter Rodman to Deputy Secretary of Defense, ‘Links between al-Qaida and Iraq,’ January 24, 2002, Digital National Security Archive, Targeting Iraq Part 1, 1-2.51 Chaim Kaufman, ‘Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War,’ International Security 29/1 (Summer 2004): 17-29.52 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 293; Gallup Poll, February 11, 2003, Polling the Nations, accessed September 20, 2018.53 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 293.54 Dessler, ‘Agent-Structure Debate,’ 466-467.55 Harvey, Iraq War, 19.56 ‘Letter from Project for a New American Century to George Bush,’ September 20, 2001, https://web.archive.org/web/20050706223846/http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm (accessed October 3, 2020).57 Newt Gingrich, ‘Speech on Iraq and Saddam Hussein,’ November 9, 2001, aei.org, https://www.aei.org/research-products/speech/speech-on-iraq-and-saddam-hussein/, (accessed September 24, 2020); Jeffrey Gedmin, ‘Collecting the Anti-Terror Coalition,’ Policy Review, Oct/Nov. 2001, 15; Gary Schmitt, ‘Why Iraq?’ The Weekly Standard, October 29, 2001, 13; Rich Lowry, ‘End Iraq,’ National Review, October 15, 2001, 33-34; William F. Buckley, ‘Killing bin Laden Won’t Do,’ National Review, November 5, 2001, 70; Editorial, ‘War Aims,’ Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2001, A16.58 Harvey, Iraq War, 19.59 Gershkoff and Kushner, ‘Shaping Public Opinion,’ 533.60 Harvey, Iraq War, chs. 3-4.61 Al Gore, Cong. Rec., 102nd Cong, 1st sess., April 18, 1991, 8648; Al Gore, ‘Defeating Hussein, Once and for All,’ New York Times, September 26, 1991, A27.62 Harvey, Iraq War, 48-49.63 Al Gore, ‘A Commentary on the War Against Terror,’ Speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, February 12, 2002, http://www.acronym.org.uk/old/archive/docs/0202/doc10.htm (accessed March 2, 2023).64 Gore, ‘War Against Terror.’65 Gore, ‘Speech at the Commonwealth Club.’66 Ibid.67 Harvey, Iraq War, 32-33, 147.68 Gore, ‘Speech at the Commonwealth Club.’ See also: Sandy Berger, ‘Building Blocks to Iraq,’ Washington Post, August 1, 2002, 27; Albright, ‘Where Iraq Fits.’69 Elizabeth Saunders, ‘Ideology, Realpolitik, and U.S. Foreign Policy,’ Perspectives on Politics 11, no. 2 (June 2013): 590-1.70 Harvey, Iraq War, 109-10.71 Ibid., 94-95.72 Leon Fuerth, ‘Not the Most Urgent Goal,’ New York Times, November 27, 2001, A13; Leon Fuerth, ‘One Terrorist at a Time,’ New York Times, January 4, 2002, A21.73 Leon Fuerth, ‘Outfoxed by North Korea,’ New York Times, January 1, 2003, A174 Leon Fuerth, ‘An Air of Empire,’ Washington Post, March 20, 2003, A29.75 Harvey, Iraq War, 103-6.76 Madeleine Albright, ‘Meet the Press: Excerpted Transcript,’ January 2, 2000, in Ehrenberg, McSherrey, Sanchez, and Sayej, The Iraq Papers, 38-39; Madeleine Albright, ‘Where Iraq Fits in the War on Terror,’ New York Times, September 13, 2002, A27.77 Harvey, Iraq War, 119-20; Richard Holbrooke, ‘High Road to Baghdad,’ The Guardian, August 28, 2002; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/29/iraq.comment1 (accessed March 3, 2023).78 Kurt Campbell and Michele Flournoy, To Prevail: An American Grand Strategy for the Campaign Against Terrorism (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies 2001); Gideon Rose and James Hoge, eds., How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War (New York: Public Affairs 2001).79 Campbell and Flournoy, To Prevail, 167-170, 205-210.80 Ibid., 13-24.81 Ibid., 208.82 Michael O’Hanlon and Philip Gordon, ‘A Tougher Target,’ December 26, 2001, brookings.edu, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/a-tougher-target-the-afghanistan-model-of-warfare-may-not-apply-very-well-to-iraq/ (accessed October 4, 2020); Editorial, ‘The Road Ahead,’ Washington Post, September 13, 2001; Editorial, ‘Allies Against Terror,’ New York Times, September 13, 2001. ‘Tougher than Terror,’ The American Prospect, January 28, 2002, 25; Joseph Cirincione, ‘A Clear, But Not Imminent Danger,’ The Globalist, September 18, 2002; Jessica Mathews, ‘The Wrong Target,’ The Washington Post, March 4, 2002.83 Gary Dorrien identifies at least 20 prominent neoconservatives in these offices. Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana (New York: Routledge 2004), 1-2.84 Harvey, Iraq War, 222, 270-75.85 Gore, ‘Speech at the Commonwealth Club;’ Miles Pomper, ‘Lawmakers Pushing Back from Quick Vote on Iraq,’ CQ Weekly, September 14, 2002, 2352; Joseph Biden and Richard Lugar, ‘Debating Iraq,’ New York Times, July 31, 2002, A19.86 Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011), 180-181; George W. Bush, ‘Speech to the U.N. General Assembly,’ September 12, 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html (accessed August 2, 2023).87 Harvey, Iraq War, 7.88 Bush, ‘Speech at West Point;’ Bush and Rice, ‘2002 National Security Strategy,’ 83-84.89 George W. Bush, ‘President Bush Outlines the Iraqi Threat,’ whitehouse.archives.gov, October 7, 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html (accessed March 13, 2023).90 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 172-75.91 Ibid., 189.92 Harvey, Iraq War, 8.93 Stieb, Regime Change Consensus, 214-24.94 Christopher Marquis, ‘Cheney Doubts Weapons Inspectors Can End Baghdad’s Threat,’ New York Times, August 8, 2002, A4.95 House of Commons, ‘The Iraq Inquiry,’ Vol. 1, Section 3.4, ‘Development of UK Strategy and Options-September to November 2002,’ 153.96 House of Commons, ‘The Iraq Inquiry,’ Vol. 1,Section 3.5, ‘Development of UK Strategy and Options-September to November 2002,’ 252.97 Memorandum, Donald Rumsfeld to George W. Bush, ‘UN Inspections of Iraq,’ October 14, 2002, Digital National Security Archive, Targeting Iraq Part 1, 1.98 Rumsfeld, Memorandum, October 14, 2002, 2.99 House of Commons, ‘The Iraq Inquiry,’ Vol. 1, Section 3.6, ‘Memoranda, David Manning to Tony Blair,’ December 11, 2002, 36-40.100 Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq (New York: Pantheon, 2004), 107-9; David Sanger, ‘Iraq Arms Report Has Big Omissions, U.S. Officials Say,’ New York Times, December 13, 2002, A1.101 Hans Blix, ‘United Nations Security Council Briefing-UNMOVIC,’ December 19, 2002, IraqWatch.org, https://web.archive/web/2005124080415/http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/unmovic/unmovic-blix-notes-12190s.htm (accessed August 10, 2018); Mohammed el Baradei, ‘United Nations Security Council Briefing,’ January 9, 2003, IraqWatch.org, https://web.archive.org/web/20060102122815/http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/iaea-elbaradei-unscbriefing-010903.htm (accessed August 12, 2018).102 Mazarr, Leap of Faith, 278.103 Stieb, Regime Change Consensus, 231-233.104 Gore, ‘Speech at the Commonwealth Club.’105 ‘Interview with Al and Tipper Gore,’ Charlie Rose, November 19, 2002, https://charlierose.com/videos/18555 (accessed August 2, 2023).106 Sandy Berger, Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Policy on Iraq, September 19, 2002, 178; John Kerry, ‘We Still Have a Choice on Iraq,’ New York Times, September 6, 2002, A23; Wesley Clark, ‘Let’s Wait to Attack,’ Time, October 14, 2002, 36.107 Albright, ‘Where Iraq Fits.’108 David von Drehle, ‘Clinton Splits with Bush on Iraq,’ Washington Post, March 13, 2003, A8; Carl Hulse, ‘Top Democrats Say a War Against Iraq is Premature,’ New York Times, March 7, 2003, A15; Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘Why Unity is Essential,’ Washington Post, February 19, 2003.109 Hans Blix, ‘Briefing to the Security Council-UNMOVIC,’ February 14, 2003, IraqWatch.org, https://web.archive.org/web/20050218014304/http://www.iraqwatch.org/unmovic/unmovic-blix-030703.htm (accessed August 11, 2018); Mohammed el Baradei, ‘Let Us Inspect,’ Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2003, A10.110 Jessica Mathews, ‘Iraq: A New Approach,’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 5, 2002, carnegieendowment.org, (accessed September 28, 2018), https://carnegieendowment.or/2002/09/05/iraq-new-approach-pub-1164, 205.111 Harvey, Iraq War, 186.112 Marc Trachtenberg, ‘Audience Costs: A Historical Analysis,’ Security Studies 21/1 (2012): 39; Matthew Levendusky and Michael Horowitz, ‘When Backing Down is the Right Decision: Partisanship, New Information, and Audience Costs,’ Journal of Politics 74/2 (April 2012): 325-326.113 Alexander Downes and Todd Sescher, ‘The Illusion of Democratic Credibility,’ International Organization 66/3 (Summer 2012): 485.114 James Lindsay and Caroline Smith, ‘Rally Round the Flag: Opinion in the United States Before and After the Gulf War,’ Brookings Review 21, no. 3 (Summer 2003), 21-22; Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, ‘Poll: Americans Cautiously Favored War with Iraq,’ Washington Post, August 13, 2002, A10.115 Saunders, ‘Ideology, Realpolitik,’ 591.116 Richard Ned Lebow, ‘What’s So Different About a Counterfactual? Review of Ferguson’s Virtual History,’ World Politics 52, no. 4 (July 2000), 565; Levy, ‘Counterfactuals,’ 381.117 Levy, ‘Counterfactuals,’ 394.118 Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 33-34.119 Fearon, ‘Hypothesis Testing,’ 181; Tetlock and Belkin, Counterfactual Thought Experiments, 21, 26.120 Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 8; Tetlock and Belkin, Counterfactual Thought Experiments, 19.121 Levy, ‘Counterfactuals,’ 394-397.122 Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 8.123 Tetlock and Belkin, Counterfactual Thought Experiments, 23; Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 55.124 Levy, ‘Counterfactuals,’ 379.125 Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 21.126 Ibid., 265.127 Levy, ‘Counterfactuals,’ 384.128 Benjamin Miller, ‘Explaining Changes in U.S. Grand Strategy: 9/11, the Rise of Offensive Liberalism, and the War in Iraq,’ Security Studies 19, no. 1 (2010): 26–65; Nuno Monteiro, Theory of Unipolar Politics, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 185-203; Butt, ‘Invade Iraq,’ 250-253.129 Dessler, ‘Agent-Structure Debate,’ 465-468.130 Stephen Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2018); Patrick Porter, ‘Why America’s Grand Strategy Has Not Changed: Power, Habit, and the U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment,’ International Security 42, no. 4 (Spring 2018), 9-46.131 Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, 11-16.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJoseph StiebJoseph Stieb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. He is the author of The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003 as well as articles in Diplomatic History, Texas National Security Review, Modern American History, and International History Review.