From USA TODAY on North Korea and Bush's Axis Speech:
"There were also concerns from U.S. allies. Bush had never before linked the three regimes, which are vastly different. Iraq is ruled by a secular dictator, Iran by an Islamic theocracy, North Korea by a reclusive communist. Not only are their ties limited, Iran and Iraq are sworn enemies.
Branding them as "evil" made negotiations more difficult and fueled fears, particularly in North Korea, that a U.S. military attack might be in the works. It reinforced the impression among some foreign leaders, particularly in Europe, that Bush was a cowboy who felt no need to take into account the views and sensitivities of others around the world.
"If you're going to have an axis of evil, why did it stop at Baghdad?" says Geoffrey Kemp, director of regional strategic studies at the Nixon Center and a former national security aide to Reagan. "Why didn't it go on to Damascus, where you can argue the Syrians have been just as involved in anti-Israeli terrorism as the Iranians?"
But Syria wasn't included, presumably because the regime was cooperating in the war on terror and the search for al-Qaeda. The omission "for a lot of people raises the question of how hypocritical this list is," Kemp says.
What's more, some analysts believe North Korea was added at the last minute so the list wouldn't name only Muslim nations.
Since then, relations with North Korea, always difficult, have gotten steadily worse. The regime acknowledged in October that it had resumed its nuclear weapons program despite the deal it struck with the Clinton administration as a reaction to Bush's "provacation".
In recent weeks, Pyongyang has expelled international monitors and removed the seals on containers that had housed nuclear fuel. After first refusing to negotiate, U.S. officials say now they are studying ways to renew talks.
Meanwhile, some are urging Bush to mind his words in this year's speech.
"The ratcheted-up, colloquial rhetoric all plays into a sort of an image that is not beneficial for us now," says Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He says "axis of evil" has proven to be "not at all useful" in U.S. diplomacy. Biden urges attention to a memorable phrase from another president, Teddy Roosevelt: "It'd be a little smarter right now to walk softly and carry a very big stick rather than speak so loudly."
* Especially when Bush's "big stick" cannot rationally be used on North Korea with millions of South Koreans and 35,000 US soldiers within NK artillery range. Understadn now? |
