The term “axis of evil” came up just once in George W. Bush’s 3,000-word State-of-the-Union address in 2002, but that was enough for the words of the former president to be known forever after as his “Axis of Evil” speech.
Critics of our 43rd president — more outspoken than they had ever been of his father, George H. W. Bush, the 41st president — loved this reference, not for the truth in the phrase but for the ammunition it gave them, deriding his decision the next year to send troops into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. How ridiculous, they believed, to think Iran, Iraq and North Korea could all have been conspiring in an evil “axis.”
While we no longer hear too many voices denouncing the phrase today, more than two decades later, it’s difficult to deny the hard truth in his words. Bush wound up his brief allusion to the evil they might create with the warning, “They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred.”
Regrettably, his enduring words have come back to haunt us.
The regimes in Pyongyang and Tehran are in closer cahoots than ever. North Korea is suspected of shipping drones and missiles to Iran, along with the technology for Iran to manufacture the weapons on its own, as Iran’s conflict with Israel boils over. Iraq, meanwhile, has existed under the heavy shadow of Iran since the demise of the Saddam regime in 2003.
Bush has every right to say, “I told you so.” His words endure as flatly and boldly today as they were when uttered 22 years ago. Let us not, however, dwell on his prescience (and that of his aide, David Frum, to whom the phrase is attributed). What counts, as we recognize the collaboration between Iran and North Korea, is our will to stand up against each of these very different, geographically distant but closely bound dictatorships — and their much larger friends.
Behind these two nasty actors, one under hardline communist hereditary rule in Northeast Asia, the other an “Islamic Republic” in the Middle East, are two far more powerful forces: Russia and Communist China. It is through them that missiles, drones and other weaponry linked to North Korea are able to slip into the hands of Iran’s “Islamic revolutionary guard,” which uses them to terrorize not only their own people but the entire region — notably Israel.
To date, the Iranians have got to be severely disappointed by the utter failure of their barrage on Israel earlier this month. The lesson is that Israel, with a huge assist from its American ally as well as Jordan, showed Iran and its North Korean de facto ally how inept they were at doing much real damage. The only victim was a 7-year-old Arabic girl, living in a Palestinian village inside Israel, severely wounded and fighting for life. The Iranians must wonder why they failed so miserably.
Now, however, is no time to breathe easy. The “axis of evil” that Bush described just five months after 9/11, the slaughter of nearly 3,000 innocent people by the Arab terrorists who flew hijacked airliners into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, now extends from Tehran via Moscow and Beijing to Pyongyang.
In a sense, North Korea and Iran are proxies for Russia and China, weaponizing resources and forces for wars that suit the interests of Moscow and Beijing. These two giants like nothing better than to see Washington caught up in a war for Israel while political factions quarrel in Congress over funds for fighting the Russians in Ukraine and supporting Taiwan against the constant threat of mainland Chinese forces. That’s to say nothing, of course, of the need for building up America’s own extended armed forces, already stretched thin around the world.
In the midst of all these dangers, we need to thank Bush for having perceived realistically the risks America faced 22 years ago. The danger, if anything, is far graver now than it was then, as the U.S. and its allies stand up against dictatorships that would destroy America’s friends and allies — and the freedom and democracy that is all so easily taken for granted.
Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He is currently a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea, and is the author of several books about Asian affairs.