How Soon They Forget

At Newsweek, Niall Ferguson plays a game of “what if?”. In this case, presumably in honor of the fifteenth anniversary of the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, he muses over what the world would have been like if the attacks had never taken place.

That’s a tough one but I think his version of alternative history is almost entirely wrong. In order for events to unfold as they do you’ve got to assume that at least in some sense the attacks were a consequence of Bush Administration heedlessness and that could have been remedied somehow. Nearly everything in his scenario depends on some dramatic U. S. response that doesn’t involve invading either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Let’s list what we can reasonably say about the world without the attacks on 9/11 without assuming “Al -Qaeda is preemptively decapitated, its leaders rounded up in a series of covert operations and left to the tender mercies of their home governments.” Here’s what I can come up with:

• We would not have invaded either Afghanistan or Iraq.
• We would have continued preparing for major power war and continued the saber-rattling against China that was so persistent pre-9/11. And that was when China’s economy was much smaller and its actions less threatening.
• We would not have spent trillions waging war in the Middle East.
• Thousands of Americans would still be alive who are now dead.
• Saddam Hussein would still be alive and ruling Iraq.
• George W. Bush would have had considerably less political leverage in the 2002-2003 period than he ended up having.

So here’s how I think that events would have unfolded:

• We would have continued to have episodic terrorist attacks in the U. S. but nothing as dramatic and motivating as 9/11.
• John Kerry would not have been the 2004 Democratic candidate. That was one of the consequences of the war in Iraq. His having served in the military and being (belatedly) anti-Iraq war were seen as important credentials.
• Hillary Clinton would have been the 2004 Democratic candidate.
• She’d’ve lost.
• If she hadn’t been the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, she’d’ve been the 2008 presidential candidate, i.e. the Iraq War weakened her prospects.
• The EGTRRA of 2001 (the first Bush tax cut) had already been enacted. The Republicans might have lost some seats in 2003. The JGTRRA of 2003 (the second Bush tax cut) would not have passed.
• DAESH would never have developed.
• We might have been much more oppositional to China than we have been.

I welcome other alternate history speculations. Keep in mind that at least from 2001-2004 and possibly from 2005-2008 the pre-9/11 George W. Bush, the “compassionate conservative” who pushed NCLB, would have been president.