Iraq is deteriorating, Iran is pursuing a nuclear program, and North Korea is defying the world and conducting nuclear tests. Looking at the international landscape, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has come to an interesting conclusion: Bush sure was right.
After discussions of the North Korean nuclear test and the anti-Semitic remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, radio host Sean Hannity asked Rice about the axis [of evil] remark.
“You think of some of the world reaction to the president’s use of the word ‘axis of evil,’ and then you see how events have been unfolding,” Hannity remarked.
“It was a pretty good analysis, wasn’t it?” Rice replied. “It really was.”
This is not at all encouraging. Looking back at the phrase, the lesson Rice should take away from the “axis of evil” isn’t that our rivals are “evil,” but rather that Bush’s foreign policies have created an “axis.”
Slate’s Jacob Weisberg recently explained that the “axis of evil” did not actually exist at the time Bush read the phrase during his 2002 State of the Union address. The White House, he explained, failed to “distinguish clearly among the overlapping security threats presented by rogue states, nuclear proliferators, and supporters of terrorism.” That was in 2002 — now “many of the world’s dictators do now function as a kind of anti-American axis, in a way they didn’t when he made that speech.”
Let’s look back at the members circa 2002. Though they shared an interest in proliferating and were all brutal violators of human rights, the regimes in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea posed distinct and very different problems for American foreign policy. Saddam’s Baath fascists in Iraq were shooting at American planes in the no-fly zone and defying the international community over sanctions and inspections. But as we now know, they weren’t major sponsors of terrorism, and were nowhere near building, buying, or giving nukes to others. The theocrats in Iran, on the other hand, had a long history of backing anti-American terrorists and presented a longer-term proliferation threat. North Korea’s Stalinists were stroking their fuel rods, menacing the South as usual, and counterfeiting dollars, but not supporting terrorism. All three regimes were hostile to the United States, but their animosity wasn’t synchronized in any meaningful way.
Now, consider the axis today. Our attacking Iraq prompted Muammar Qaddafi, a Little Brother of Evil, to put up his hands and surrender his nuclear effort. But Iran and North Korea drew from Bush’s idealist invasion the realist lesson that only a nuclear deterrent could preserve them from regime change. Kim, in particular, seems to have taken the point that the American war machine could instantly pulverize his tanks and missiles massed along the DMZ. This meant he needed to accelerate his deterrent efforts by trying out his Pacific-spanning Long Dong missile and cramming for a nuclear test. Bush’s adamant policy of nondiscussion made matters worse, ensuring that neither country would slow down or back away from its atomic rush. He might just as well have announced a prize for the first successful detonation.
But the president’s biggest act of axis-enhancement was tying up our military in Iraq and antagonizing our allies. While the global cop was busy in Baghdad, the world’s other worst villains staged a jailbreak. They understood that Bush couldn’t readily respond to their provocations with force. The opportunity cost of occupying Iraq has also been felt in Syria and Sudan, among the other places where evil has gone unchecked for want of effective American leadership. At another level, our Bush- and Iraq-inspired unpopularity has spurred an informal new post-Cold War anti-American International, with Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and George Galloway running for General Secretary.
Rice looks back with fondness at Bush’s “axis of evil” analysis, patting the president on the back for a phrase well-coined. The reality, however, is that the administration’s foreign policy, shaped in large part by Rice herself, helped create an axis where none existed.
Before Rice takes a victory lap on the president’s behalf, she might want to actually look at the way in which the administration has strengthened our adversaries.