I suspect the Iraq sanctions would have continued as they had before and the US would have continued to derail any attempts thru the UNSC to wind them back. This is just the continuation of the Clinton policy.

On the Korean peninsula Gore would have probably continued the reasonably successful Clinton policy, a formula the Bush administration has reluctantly returned to after a hiatus that saw North Korea actually test the bomb.

President Gore, perhaps eager to display US military power in the mid east and so, at least theatrically twink the nose of terrorists etc, would probably have turned up the Iraq Liberation Act a notch or two. At the very least this would have had some domestic popularity post-9/11.

As Iraq was already somewhat gutted by years of war and sanctions, it is not out of the realms of possibility that a Gore run Iraq Liberation Act campaign, barely fitting the name covert, may have ultimately sparked renewed Shi’ite rebellion in western / southern Iraq. This time the ‘no fly zone’ would be used to prevent Saddam Hussein using his limited rotary wing air power against the rebels as he did after Gulf War 1.

With Iraq under pressure, and perhaps falling apart between the hammer and anvil of US-manipulated UN sanctions and a US-sponsored insurgency, Turkey may feel it has a legitimate role to occupy rebellious Kurdistan, especially without the US Army to constrain them.

Frankly with all this mess in our alternate reality Mesopotamia, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that some form of UN, or more likely, NATO “humanitarian intervention”, but with a larger European component, akin to the Kosovo intervention may actually see President Gore put US boots on the ground in Iraq. Indeed the usually perceptive Brendan O’Neill pointed out that this is what the French and German alternatives proposed before the real world US invasion actually amounted to.

So maybe Iraq would be in the midst of insurgency today under the last days of President Gore. Perhaps with McCain and Jeb Bush running for the GOP candidacy against Lieberman and Clinton.

Now think back to pre-election 2000. Does anyone remember Bush talking about terrorism, Iraq, regime change, etc.? I don’t. And even if he was doing that, was it at the level and to the extent that Gore was doing it? Combine what we read of Lieberman’s speech, with what Gore said in the video, with Bill Clinton’s legacy, the 2001 recession and 9/11 attacks, and many of the same key players in the same key positions, and you get a sum not very different than today.

There were no good choices in 2000, other than anarchy. It’s the same this year. Let’s choose wisely, shall we?

2. A carbon tax shift proposal would have been introduced that would have put a small carbon tax in place in exchange for an across-the-board payroll tax cut.