With an alarming message to every enemy of the United States: “Even 7,000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves -- you will not escape the justice of this nation. What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning.” George Bush who is so adamant to embark on perhaps the most reckless foreign military campaign in U.S. history asserted in one of the most dramatic moments of his State of the Union address that Iran, Iraq and North Korea jointly constitute "an axis of evil" that threatens world peace. He said:
“North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”
The U.S. President’s belligerent remarks about North Korea, Iran and Iraq and introducing them before the world as “axis of evil” are nothing short of a declaration of war. They have raised serious concerns throughout the world as the American war on terrorism is likely to spread in terms of geography and nature. His aggressive designs are quite clear in the words: “America is no longer protected by vast oceans. We are protected from attack only by vigorous action abroad, and increased vigilance at home.”
Overlooking international implications, and political, legal and moral justifications, the United States is swiftly moving forward for a large-scale military operation against Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein albeit United Nations inspectors have been able to trace none of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), chemical and biological munitions and ballistic missile delivery systems. Invading Iraq is prone to repudiate the international legal conventions and make a precedent to invade any sovereign country and overthrow its government which is found to be hostile to U.S. interests. This has certainly raised a number of concerns and challenged many a rationale behind such a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy.
The crux of the matter is if the United States today possesses the right to invade Iraq due to that country's violation of UN Security Council resolutions, other Security Council members can also claim to invade other member states that are in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. For example, Russia would be obliged to invade Israel, France would have the right to invade Turkey, and Great Britain will not vacillate to invade Morocco. This kind of willful right to attack unilaterally any country could seriously eliminate the authority of the United Nations, undermine the principle of collective security and open the door to international anarchy.
Michael T. Clare has rightly observed that ‘Axis of Evil’ crumbles under scrutiny. For his foes, the term is cheap and illogical nonsense; there is no "axis," simply because the three nations pose quite different and discrete threats. As for branding them evil, that just proves once again that Bush is an ignorant cowboy who yearns to see a multihued world in monochrome. Senator Kerry is highly critical of what he calls President Bush’s “blustering unilateralism” in the “war on terrorism”. From the North Korean foreign ministry, Pyongyang states that it is entirely “a self-opinionated foreign policy, political immaturity and moral leprosy of the Bush administration". With reference to his novel phrase, Bush may be asked if any “axis of evil” really exists in the world. How real is the threat from what he presumes as “an axis of evil”? Let us first consider the concept of an "axis." The term suggests an alliance or confederation of states that pose a significant danger precisely because of their common alignment - a menace greater than the sum of the parts.
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