A pretty good answer.

A few points:

Our military chasing Al Quaeda into the nuclear-armed Pakistan may not have been as easy as it might look. Afghanistan is slowly coming around, but the Pakistan border remains a serious sore point. Unless Pakistan itself clamps down, I'm not sure where we can go from there. I'm not sure a Democratic president would have been able to do much differently.

Same with Saudi Arabia. I see no evidence that Gore or another president would have been any more eager to step on Saudi toes, much as they may deserve it. Democrats burn oil too, and when Gore was VP, he spent just as much time kissing Saudi butt as any other American president. You know, if we wanted to make Mideast oil less important, a good first step might have been to loosen up on the restrictions that make it almost impossible to find any new oil anywhere EXCEPT the Mideast.

As far as Iraq goes, I suspect President Gore would still be waiting for Hans Blix to come up with something, assuming Gore had been willing to deploy the troops that convinced Saddam to let Blix in in the first place. After a year or so, Saddam would have left the front pages, the U.N. would declare victory and go home, and he would be right back in business.

You're right in that speculation becomes more difficult as you move farther down the other leg of the Trousers of Time. ;)