I saw someone starting this thought exercise just yesterday - imagine Al Gore became president, say for two terms. Then the boat swung back into two terms of McCain, followed by Obama. No Iraq war. No Benghazi. Possibly no 2006 Housing Crisis. Maybe Covid would still have happened. But anyway, wouldn’t that have been a much happier timeline?
Back to no Iraq War, maybe Saddam would have gotten toppled over locally. The Arab Spring would still have happened, but then also maybe no ISIS?