I can't see Bush doing anything like that due to the family's ties with the House of Saud.

Let's try this instead...

Gore beats Bush in 2000. During the first year of his presidency, Pres. Gore becomes increasingly frustrated with Saudi Arabia over it's exportation of Wahhabi extremism and lack of desire to play ball over Israel, oil prices, etc.

When 9/11 happens, some other group, maybe a rogue CIA or KGB or Moussad or whoever manages to get a couple suitcase bombs into Arabia. While Gore is publicly saying all the right stuff, behind the scene's he's getting more upset about the King's inability to keep radical groups in check to the point where it's an open secret in intelligence communities worldwide.

At this point that unaffiliated group nukes Mecca, utterly undermining any pretense that the House of Saud has legitimacy. In the Middle East the U.S. and/or Israel is blamed. Gore blames...I don't know, probably Russia for either doing it or letting their nukes get into the hands of terror groups. Then the bomb goes off in Medina.

At that point, it's probably a total free-for-all in the Middle East. Iran invades SA as it devolves into Civil Wat, Iraq erupts in Civil War. Turkey invades Kurdistan. Everybody invades Israel. Pakistan, Jordan and other Sunni majority nations call for the UN to intercede and send peacekeepers to Arabia while considering nukes against Iran. Russia considers sending troops in but NATO says they won't allow it. A refugee crisis that makes the current one look like a trickle hits.

And that's if the US is lucky.