The X and Y Axis of Evil

Those of us who read the newspapers, which tend to be focused on more details than Tv news, have read the stories that neither the administration nor Tv news have focused too much on: Iran was cooperating with the USA after 11 Sept 2001. They were helping us go after the Taliban and catching terrorists. Of course, I’ve learned recently they also had a self-interested motive in doing so as the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan was [along with Iraq] one of their long-time rivals. However, they were helping us. Then Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in the Axis of Evil in the 2002 State of the Union. Besides providing a lot of fodder for SNL and other Late Night Shows, this had the effect of Iran ceasing to help us. They were thinking, “Axis of Evil? You SoB, we were just helping you in Afghanistan!”

Yesterday I learned on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, an NPR news quiz show, that the only reason the Axis of Evil was created is that the Administration didn’t want it to seem that they were focusing too much on just Iraq. So Condeleeza Rice told them to add Iran and North Korea. So these countries were arbitrarily added just to pad their justification for the Iraq war and have led to all kinds of unforeseen consequences. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but perhaps if Iran had not been named we wouldn’t be in as much of a situation right now over their nuclear program. I know they were doing it covertly anyway, but perhaps we would have been able to negotiate a little better and there wouldn’t be so much rhetoric back and forth.

I hope the next President is surrounded by less ineptitude.