The Folly of the Axis of Evil
In reading this wonderfully erudite and interesting essay about Iran by the British writer Martin Amis, this passage jumped out:
In 1997, the regime felt confident enough to sanction the surprise victory of President Muhammad Khatami, who won by the same landslide margin of 69% in a joyous election that no one disputed. Khatami, a cleric, had nonetheless far stronger liberal credentials than the technocrat Mousavi (who, during the Iran-Iraq war, was well to the right of Khamenei). Lovingly hailed as "Ayatollah Gorbachev", Khatami was soon talking about the "thoughtful dialogue" he hoped to open with America. It seemed possible that international isolation, which so parches and de-oxygenates the Iranian air, was about to be eased.
Everyone understood that this process would take time. In June 2001, Khatami was re-elected with a majority of 78%. Seven months later came George W Bush's "axis of evil" speech (one of the most destructive in American history), and the Tehran Spring was at an end.
Ah, the "Axis of Evil" speech. I remember watching it, live, from a television set in Italy, and realizing with a sudden jolt that Bush didn't know what he was talking about.
Quite a few people might say, "Duh, Bush was clearly an idiot from the moment he took office," which is undeniably true. Yet after the national trauma of September 11th, I allowed myself to believe that Bush would rise to the moment, unite the country, and help us defeat this frightening new adversary. I wasn't alone- Bush's approval ratings in late 2001 approached 90 percent.
Other people turned on Bush after the invasion of Iraq, or when the occupation of Iraq began to go badly. Some didn't turn on him until his second term, when his breathtaking incompetence shone forth in high-definition relief. But me, the "Axis of Evil" speech was my "wait a sec" moment.
Think of the repercussions. First, the speech led to the subsequent sorry prelude to the Iraq War, launched 14 months later. Secondly, labeling North Korea in the group managed to effortlessly roll back diplomatic progress with the hermit kingdom. And of course, as Amis mentions, the damage done to Western rapproachement with Iran was incalcuable.
Not only did the "evil" remark deflate the reformist movement's momentum, it also slammed the door shut on possible Iranian cooperation in the war against al-Qaeda, the group we ostensibly wanted to eradicate. In the weeks after 9/11, Iran quietly approached the US with help against their common enemy. The US said thanks, but no thanks, preferring to keep all of our enemies lumped together in the same bunch.
In the halcyon days after 9/11, Bush's ardent supporters publicly thanked God that he was president. His shellshocked opposition didn't disagree. With historical hindsight, we can conclude that having such a buffoonish idiot in office during a national crisis amounted to extraordinarily bad luck on our part.
