Recent interview in Wired asked Al Gore this exact question and he minced no words about Iraq:
How do you think this conversation would be different if you’d become president?
I like to think a lot of things would be different. I would have done
my best to put a price on carbon and taken a number of other steps. I certainly would not have invaded Iraq. There’s a long list of things I
like to think would have turned out differently, but it’s pointless, in
my opinion, to go down that road, because it’s just fantasy. It’s much
better and more productive—and certainly healthier—to focus on the
future, and that’s what I’ve been doing since the day of the Supreme
Court decision.
In another world, America would have two leaders of government. One would be a “King/queen” who could speak fluently, open bridges, meet with diplomats; the other a dedicated wonk. It is rare to have these qualities in one person.
Understood as such, I just don’t take him as a particularly good or sincere individual, objectively, Trump would lead to more deaths inside the US, but would he lead to less deaths outside? It’s hard to tell even, but I feel gross comparing their relative evil versus just wishing they disappeared from this earth.
No, he would have continued with the disastrous policy of no fly zones and embargoes for Iraq which did nothing but hurt the people of Iraq. It wasn’t great before Bush broke the country, either. Bush had a shit policy for the mid east, but it’s part of a much longer history of bad policies towards the mid east, with the only major positive breaks being the Egypt-Israel accords under Carter and the Oslo accords under Clinton (which quickly unraveled). It’s like the Cold War - both sides of the aisle were hawks and essentially pro-Imperialists. Bush just managed to bring this shit to a head, empowered by AQ.
The way I see politics is that largely everyone is being pushed along by the same big tide. Political parties squabble over details but half the time you could take the ruling party and the opposition party and switch them and you’d also switch their political positions - each party would do the same thing and each party would criticize the other for doing it.
What differs when we pick different politicians is that they all have their own pet projects and points of interest. Al Gore’s pet project may have been environmentalism. Bush’s pet project was going to war in Iraq. So when people say it wouldn’t really be that different, I think that’s a big stretch. It’s not really that I like Gore, I just think he has different interests than Bush.
Between that article and Gore’s involvement in investment funds that focus on the long-term sustainability of a corporation, rather than the profit-driven short term, made me a fan.
I’m still thinking maybe he’s got some early dementia signs. His solid performance during his speech would argue against it, but IF it were the case, I’d expect the first ladies, the current president and VP to be clued in and to be ready to calmly, discreetly redirect him. Which could fit with what appears to be happening here.
Consider also how quiet and out of the public eye Dubya has been for the past seven years, more so than any president since, well, Reagan. Even Nixon was more present in his retirement. The assumption is that W keeps a low profile so he doesn’t remind people of how poorly he fared as president. But if that’s so, the why won’t Cheney go away? And besides, this is usually when former presidents do their image rehabilitation work anyway.
I agree with your assessment of our politics. My analogy is professional wrestling. They may beat the crap out of each other in the ring, but when they walk backstage, the same guy hands them both a check.
If I had to guess, it could be that Bush is at least peripherally aware of what a huge fuck-up he was as president, while I can guarantee you that Cheney continues to think he has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. It’s the children who are wrong.
It seems like there is a real chance Bush didn’t even like being president. To go from one drugged-out fuck up to another your whole life, always shielded by your family’s money and influence, only to be placed in a position where half the nation hates you and you can’t stop hearing about it is probably a pretty hard emotional shock.
Like a lot of people, George W Bush did a number of things in his life before he found his true calling - painting. Unlike many of us who might have entered a career in finance before realizing we really wanted to teach, or entering a career in teaching before realizing we really wanted to work in finance, George Bush entered a career in being the president of the US before realizing it wasn’t really for him.
