One has to consider how this-all might unfold today

Probably just about exactly how it unfolded back then.

Wait, Reno was a Clinton appointee, right? Were you going for an "imagine how much worse Dubya's administration would have handled it" kind of thing? Seems when they don't have a real war handy, administrations have been inventing Wars On $something for a while now. (I won't bother arguing that it didn't start with Reagan and drugs.)