In 2000, This was the popular vote (Source 1)
Al Gore 50,999,897 — WINNER
George Bush 50,456,002
Al Gore won the election right? He became president? Not really, we have a serious issue that no one wants to discuss. We have a flawed election system called the Electoral College. (source 4)
In fact, all the evidence points to the electoral college system actually starting the war in Iraq , and the current one is Syria.
We’re going to assume that 9/11 was going to happen anyway, regardless of who was president. So the Afghanistan war was inevitable, but most likely would have been handled differently, most likely a much shorter war.
However that’s not the focus of the article, the focus of the article is actually how the Electoral College started a war in Iraq.
If Al Gore was nominated the president because he did win the vote (in other words the electoral college system didn’t exist). There would have been no “Father Legacy” to go into Iraq. In other words the chances are MUCH lower that the Iraq war wouldn’t have existed.
For this article we’re going to assume that since Al Gore was president the Iraq war never happened. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the Iraq war. (Source 2)
This $2.4 trillion would have stayed in the American Economy creating jobs rather than spent rebuilding schools that we spent money blowing up during the Iraq war. In other words the $2.4 trillion in the US economy would have most likely kept the US out of such a deep recession in 2008. The recession might have happened anyway, but with an extra $2.4 trillion in the US treasury we would have had many more tools to fight it off quicker.
But that’s not really what might cause a war today.
When we attacked Saddam we did something that most didn’t fully comprehend at the time, or if they did comprehend it they never really cared, since it would become someone else’s problem.
There are two major Sects (with subsets) of Islam. There are Shia and Sunni. Shia are concentrated in Iran, Iraq, Syria and about 35% of the population of Lebanon. The rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni.
In Syria, Assad is a sect of Shia, most of the population is Sunni (similar to Iraq during Saddam’s era).
We backed Saddam in the 1980′s because he was a Sunni Ruler in a Shia country, it was done to keep a buffer zone for Iran. ( Source 3)
However when Bush took power in the United States, he fought the Sunni leader and installed a Shia Government. I want to stress that Bush lost the popular vote, hence why this becomes more interesting.
After Saddam fell, this left an unconstrained Iran to extend it’s influence all the way to Israel’s borders. This was a problem for Israel and indirectly the United States (it’s primary ally / supporter).
Iran now was able to extend it’s Shia influence all the way from Tehran to Beirut. Since Iraq was now firmly in Shia control, We had to create another line. We can’t attack Iraq again (it would be tantamount to admitting we were wrong to go in and leave in the first place) so the battle line was redrawn to Syria.
In other words, because of the Electoral college shortcomings in 2000, we now have a war in Syria a dozen years later. Evidence is mounting that the Syrian conflict is growing outside it’s borders, and has already engulfed Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Israel and few other nations in the region. As well as Western powers spending their citizen tax money on various factions within Syria and surrounding areas.
You can thank the Electoral college for the Iraq war, Syrian war and most likely the severalty of the 2008 recession.
Source 1 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000
Source 2 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
Source 3 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war
Source 4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_electoral_college