Going After Evil

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Going After Evil
by James Hall, Associate Editor

February 13, 2002

"Leaning Left"

James Hall President Bush's State of the Union speech was notable for the creation of a new terminology--Axis of Evil--a label that was promptly slapped on three old US foes--Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. None of these regimes is particularly friendly to America these days, but there's a real question over whether or not they should be included into the war on terrorism. Mr. Bush must make clear a case for attacking any of the three in the same way he did for attacking Afghanistan, or risk losing the international support that has been so helpful in reducing the al-Qaeda network around the world.

al-Qaeda is clearly our enemy, a fact made plain by its attacks on American soldiers sailors, and embassy personnel abroad well before September 11. But the cases for attacking Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are less clear. These were classified as "rogue nations" during the Bush campaign for the presidency because of their desires to obtain weapons of mass destruction, but they have not yet attacked Americans or even expressed a desire to do so.

It was never clear that when and if these "rogues" obtained their weapons that they would threaten the US with them. After all, a number of states have the weapons and the technology to use them, including India, Pakistan, China, and Russia, and the US is able to maintain amiable and even improving relations with all of them. Relations with Iran and North Korea were improving before the president's speech, and Iraq remains under the control of UN sanctions which sharply limit what it can do to its neighbors.

So what are the cases for each "rogue?" Iraq is probably the most dangerous of the three. Saddam Hussein has shown a desire to conquer his neighbors and attack Israel without provocation. But Iraq is also the most-muzzled of the rogues--under a UN sanction that limits what it can do to acquire arms, overflown by US and British jets and carefully monitored from a series of nearby military bases. Its military is about a third of what it was in 1990, and it has known the sting of complete defeat. Regardless of what Saddam might like to do, the question is, is Iraq ready and willing to do it?

Iran has been a US foe for two decades. And it supports guerilla organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad that constantly attack Israel. It was implicated in the recent attempt to ship arms to the Palestinian Authority. But Iran is also the largest Islamic democracy and Iranian liberals have tried to move closer to trade and commerce with the West recently. Iran supported the US effort against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It appears balanced on the knife edge of tilting either for or against America---will the president's message push it away from us?

North Korea is as hollowed out as the former Soviet Union was. It has a powerful military that must work in the fields to get its meager harvest out. Economically it is nearly bankrupt, and would like to make money selling the offensive missile technology it is developing. The North Koreans support no terrorist groups, and have been trying to make peace with their neighbors, but the US opposes their attempts to sell missiles, and so the president put North Korea in the Axis. But are the North Korean's aims any less ambitious than the aims of the Russians and the Chinese who are selling missile technology to India and Iran?

If this war is about terrorist groups, then the president is going to have to make a case for going after Iraq because of its support for terrorist groups. Mr. Bush is going to have a make a case that Iran's support of the Palestinians threatens the US. And he'll have to make the case that North Korea somehow supports terror. So far none of these cases have been made.

On the other hand, if this war is really about the spread of weapons and technology to unfriendly "rogue" regimes, at some point the US will have to confront its current allies--Russia and China--who are spreading that technology. And while the US has a mandate, both from its citizens and the world, to go after al-Qaeda, a demonstrated enemy, it may find itself alone if it chooses to go after the world's 'Evil rogues' without building a case for it. ***

Photo of President Bush courtesy of Reuters
Photo of Senator Ted Kennedy and President Bush courtesy of Senator Kennedy's Official Web Site