Phil Taylor's papers
|
BACK TO : The Bush Doctrine - Key Speeches & Analysis
Taking look back at the 'axis of evil' by D E Sanger & N MacFarquar 
Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune |
Taking look back at the 'axis of evil' David E. Sanger and Neil MacFarquhar/NYT Tuesday, January 20, 2004 State of the Union to avoid the term, but Bush aides say the rhetoric worked WASHINGTON Two years after President George W. Bush described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" - perhaps the signature phrase of his presidency - Bush's foreign policy aides argue that his uncompromising rhetoric and willingness to use military force have changed the behavior of potential enemies. But that change has come at a cost, government officials from Asia to the Islamic world argue, as resistance in some places has hardened to Bush's calls for reform and democratization. Bush plans to return to the theme of reform in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, his aides say, though he will not repeat the phrase that prompted an outcry from his critics and allies alike. Instead, he will urge countries to follow the example of Libya, which recently announced it would dismantle its nascent nuclear weapons program - a step the administration attributes to Bush's stance with nations seeking weapons of mass destruction. Administration officials say that Iran, Sudan and to some extent Syria appear to be doing what they can to avoid confrontation with Washington. Tehran's reluctant agreement to let international inspectors explore nuclear facilities kept secret for the past 18 years seems at least partly driven by the fear of attack. Syria has embraced a pragmatic approach and its border with Iraq is no longer viewed as a passage for extremists seeking to attack American forces in Iraq. North Korea remains the stubborn outsider. Last week, its foreign minister boasted to a delegation of visiting Americans that the more time Bush spends trying to build pressure on the country to disarm, the more time it has to add to its nuclear arsenal. The CIA believes it has done exactly that, producing fuel for two or three more bombs while Bush was focused on Iraq. Across the Islamic world, reformers from Iran to Egypt say that Bush's words and style have made it easier for their opponents to tar them as lackeys of Washington. On issues ranging from political reform to rewriting school curriculums, those pushing for democracy or expanded rights for women find themselves facing vociferous accusations that they are pursing an American agenda or American dictums. Administration officials respond that, over time, Bush's rhetoric will aid those movements, not hurt them. "I cannot see how being truthful about the nature of regimes is harmful to those who want to change those regimes," Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, said in an interview from Camp David, where she was editing the last drafts of the State of the Union speech Bush will deliver on Tuesday. "When Ronald Reagan spoke out against the Soviet Union, it stimulated those inside, who saw they had friends around the world, and they were able to speak out. It will be easier, not harder, for democratic forces to prevail." Rice is among the most passionate advocates of the position that Bush changed the landscape when he uttered the phrase two years ago, although she and others say it will not appear in this year's speech. It was also not repeated in last year's State of the Union. She insisted that despite the criticism directed at Bush following the speech - that there was no axis and that Bush hurt America's cause by labeling enemy states - "it really challenged the international community to get serious about this class of states pursuing weapons of mass destruction." She cited Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative - in which a dozen or so countries have begun to intercept suspected weapons shipments - as an example of how the White House motivated allies to act. "What he did was get the whole world's attention," said a senior defense official. "It's had an effect beyond the three nations, and whether that was accidental or calculated, in retrospect I think it was a smart thing to do." Smart or not, Muslim scholars and officials acknowledge in interviews that Bush fundamentally altered the way the United States dealt with the Islamic world once he spoke in such stark terms. "It changed the status quo in the region for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran," said Abdul Rahman al Rashed, a Saudi columnist and former editor of the pan-Arab Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily published in London. "Did Bush scare people? In my opinion, yes, he did scare every single regime. Was that positive? It shows some positive elements, except in the street. It was perceived in the street as arrogance." The administration and its supporters say that the evidence that Bush's combination of stark rhetoric and willingness to use force had the greatest effect on states like Syria, which has both softened its tone and heeded warnings to patrol its border with Iraq. But when Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested Friday that Syria should follow Libya's example and give up its weapons, the country's state-run media shot back that Israel should first give up its nuclear program. At around the same time as the Iraq invasion, Tehran began to concede that it had been secretly working to enrich uranium, though it denied that it was planning to use the material for a bomb. Reluctantly, it allowed international inspectors into the country and turned over documents detailing 18 years of surreptitious activities. It signed an accord allowing more intrusive inspections - all steps that Saddam Hussein refused to take. Rice and others see a direct connection between Iran's new tone and Bush's approach, even while noting that the United States has pursued a far less confrontational strategy with Iran and North Korea than it did with Iraq. Yet even reformist members of Iran's parliament like Ali Shakourirad argue that the administration overstates its own influence. "Bush's 'axis of evil' speech did not have much effect on our policies, except it made efforts for the détente policy with the U.S. worse," he said in a recent interview. He argued that pressure from the far more soft-spoken Europeans and the International Atomic Energy Agency had more to do with Iran's decisions. "The pressure from the U.S. was not that effective," he argues. In Libya, the country's mercurial leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, apparently worried about sharing Saddam's fate, began negotiations with the United States and Britain to destroy his own weapons of mass destruction the week before the Iraq war began. He did not make concessions, though, until a ship full of centrifuge parts headed for Libya was intercepted in October. "Libya came to the United States and Great Britain to do it," Rice argued. "That said something about who was enforcing the world's demands." But a longtime Republican adviser to Bush suggested last week that the impact of Bush's speech and subsequent actions was "dramatically overblown" and that Qaddafi began moving to end his isolation several years ago, when he turned over suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing case. Whatever the source of the concessions, the example of force used against Iraq has become part of the public mindset. Western diplomats report that at a recent soccer match involving Saadi, Qaddafi's soccer-playing son, fans from the opposing side chanted "Saadi, Saadi, son of the ruler, your fate will be the fate of Oday." The phrase - it rhymes in Arabic - refers to the son of Saddam who was killed in an American raid. On the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire, Bush's "axis of evil" speech is often cited as an example of how he needlessly alienated other nations. "I think it was one of the braggadocio moments for the administration that invites scorn and ridicule," Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said in an interview the other day in New Hampshire. "I was surprised that he would base a foreign policy on it." In fact, by all accounts it began as a speechwriter's turn of phrase, meant to signal that the president planned to deal with far more than just Al Qaeda in a post-Sept. 11 world. "No one seemed that concerned," one official said. But Bush has not repeated the wording in more than a year. Perhaps the reason, some American and Arab officials say, is that Bush has come to see that there has been far less progress in the president's follow-up agenda: to promote wider democracy in the Islamic world by promoting the examples of emerging movements in Afghanistan and Iraq. That initiative, which Bush touched on in his 2002 address and amplified last autumn, is often viewed with suspicion, if not hostility. Syrians bridle, though, at the idea that the Americans can teach the region about democracy - making the argument, often heard throughout the Arab world - that civil rights have eroded in the United States itself since Sept. 11. But they concede that they have no choice but to try to work with the Bush administration. In an interview in late November, Syria's president, Bashar Assad, said: "The issue here is whether the United States has a vision to solve problems in Iraq, in the region, in the Middle East, or whether the United States doesn't have that vision," he said. "I hope we can make better steps toward democracy in our country, but that takes time. No one in Syria, or maybe in the region if I want to exaggerate a little bit, asks for help from any country to have his own democracy." He added later that most Arabs now believe that the Iraq example, even if it rid the region of a leader many feared, was "a bad example of bringing democracy." In Tuesday night's speech, Bush has the opportunity, officials say, to move the debate beyond the axis-of-evil phraseology. In the Mideast, Iraq has actually faded from the headlines somewhat. But the public zeal to solve the Arab-Israeli dispute has not, and even those pursuing the kind of reform agenda Bush would applaud say U.S. pressure has been counterproductive. "We are not yielding to the American threat," said Aziz Shukri, the dean of the school of international relations at the University of Kalamoon. "The whole world is witnessing a new era of American hegemony, American dominance, so we have to coexist with it. It doesn't mean we like it." The New York Times Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune |