Kerry wins due to a lackluster economy.
Exactly. That was my reasoning as well. Without Iraq, terrorism would be much less of an issue in 2004 and many of the voters who voted for Bush due to concerns about terrorism would have voted for Kerry due to concerns about the economy. Also, without Iraq, Bush would have been unable to attack Kerry as a flip-flopper or "swiftboat" Kerry, and thus Kerry would have gotten some voters that didn't go to him in RL.
Jfern, could you also please make a map?
Terrorism would still be a big concern due to war in Afghanistan and unfriendly regimes in Iran, Iraq and NKorea. Kerry could still be painted as a flip-flopper on a host of issues and statements, and there would have still been some animus from the swift-boaters.
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The situation in Afghanistan was very stable in 2004, since almost all of the fighting there had stopped, the U.S. had removed the Taliban, and since there were no large scale insurgencies there yet. Thus, I don't think people would have paid much attention to Afghanistan or those other unfriendly regimes (since they would have felt that these govt.'s aren't an immediate threat to the U.S.). Terorrism would have still been an issue, but much less of an issue since there wouldn't be weekly bombings directed against American troops (as there was in Iraq). True, Kerry could have been attacked as a flip-flopper, but the attacks would have been less severe than they were with an Iraq War, and also I don't think people would have paid that much attention to swiftboating in 2004 if they would have been less scared (by Bush). Thus, the flipflopping that Bush orchestrated against Kerry might have very well backfired against him without an Iraq War.
Afganistan still would've helped Bush because it was somewhat stable. I mean it's not like he invaded Afganistan before he didn't invade that country as opposed to Kerry and the $87 billion.