What if Gore were president now?
uk.news.yahoo.com
Wednesday November 7, 07:50 PM
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Had a small margin of votes in last year's U.S. presidential election gone the other way, Democrat Al Gore would be confronting Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan's ruling Taliban today -- not Republican George W Bush.
In that hard-fought campaign, which produced the closest presidential verdict in modern U.S. history, each candidate drew a stark contrast with the other on national security issues, although terrorism was barely mentioned.
However, faced with the devastating September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, would Gore as president have handled the American response any differently than Bush?
Would he have handled it any better?
No one can say how someone will respond to a challenge. But to the extent answers are possible, the speculation on Gore is mixed, according to analysts and aides to former President Bill Clinton, whom Gore served as vice president.
Eight weeks into the U.S.-led anti-terror war, public opinion polls still give Bush, a former Texas governor, high marks for leadership in this transforming crisis.
Like most Americans, Gore and other prominent Democrats have largely rallied behind Bush, who before the attacks was seen as inexperienced and untested in international affairs.
FEW OPTIONS
In truth, "there are few other good options" besides the course Bush is pursuing, said former State Department spokesman James Rubin.
"I think the bipartisanship shown in the last two months regarding America's response to the events of September 11 indicate that both parties are in agreement as to how to deal militarily with the war on terrorism," he said in a telephone interview.
"The al Qaeda network has to be destroyed and it's hard to see how you can do that without confronting the Taliban."
Norman Orenstein of the American Enterprise Institute agreed. "Gore would, I am sure, be pursuing military options in Afghanistan very similar to what we're doing now and trying to build a (anti-terror) coalition in the same way," he said.
In responding to the attacks that killed about 4,800 people, Bush has benefited hugely from sustained support from opposition Democrats.
Gore partisans strongly doubt their candidate would have had such a felicitous political climate.
Initially, the country would have rallied around Gore but by now, congressional panels would be probing how the September 11 attacks occurred and Republicans would be blaming Gore and Clinton for not taking out bin Laden earlier, Orenstein said.
Moreover, while Bush has been criticised and pressured by Republican conservatives wanting him to target Iraq, in addition to Afghanistan, Gore likely would have endured a much more relentless and distracting drumbeat, the scholar said.
Bush partisans say Gore would not have had such seasoned advisers at his side as Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Who Gore's Defence secretary might have been is unclear. But Democrats say former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke would have performed as well as Powell as secretary of state and Air Force General Richard Meyers, Bush's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would have had the same job under Gore.
The New York Times reported recently that not one of 15 prominent Gore loyalists interviewed by the newspaper said their candidate would have done a better job than Bush.
Gore partisans interviewed by Reuters did not make that claim either, and several stressed there was no way of reliably knowing how his team might have performed.
Clinton agonised over using military force in places like Iraq and may have had a harder time than Bush in deciding to wage war in Afghanistan, a former Democratic official said.
Gore was more hawkish than Clinton and may not have hesitated to go after al Qaeda, but whether he would target the Taliban was questionable, the Democrat said.
POTENTIAL DIFFERENCES
Gore advisers agree Iraq is a serious concern but say before the U.S. takes military action there, it must work with allies to build a strong case against Baghdad for trying to rebuild its nuclear, biological and chemical arms arsenal.
Another likely Bush-Gore difference concerns the Middle East, where rising Israeli-Palestinian violence has fanned fresh Arab anger at Washington and fed bin Laden's anti-U.S. propaganda.
Partisans say Gore would have retooled the U.S. approach but not disengaged from peacemaking for months as Bush did.
While still uneasy about criticising Bush in wartime, some Gore loyalists have begun to gently question his ability to shape a comprehensive strategy once the bombs stop falling.
Leon Fuerth, Gore's national security adviser, said his ex-boss would have had a different mind-set, understanding "you had to deal with the hot button issues in the world and that a purely defensive posture was not going to be enough."
This meant "you also had to address the large issues that frame the future -- including mass poverty and environmental defoliation. There are some indications that President Bush is confronting a world that is different than his premises and he may be adjusting to that," Fuerth said.
Bruce Jentleson, a Gore campaign foreign policy adviser, was concerned the Bush team was not "sufficiently engaged in the affirmative battle of ideas in the Arab world."
"We need to be politically and intellectually aggressive" in this area and that includes urging Arab allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia to open their political systems -- "an essential part of our strategy beyond capturing bin Laden," he said. |
