Breaking up the Axis of Evil

This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on July 17, 2008.

Breaking up the Axis of Evil

Technically, the United States is not now, nor has it been since 1945, at war. The Constitution is very specific on the point - for a legal state of war to exist, war must be declared by the Congress. No such declaration was made for Korea, nor Vietnam, nor Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor Iraq the second time around.

But in 2002, just a few months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush created a new kind of declaration, a declaration that we still live with every day. This declaration was that some nations, and three in particular, were an Axis of Evil.

In his declaration, Bush put these nations and the world on notice: "America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security."

Those three nations, of course, were North Korea, Iraq, and Iran.

These nations all seemed to derive perverse pleasure out of goading the United States and the world.

Iraq's Saddam Hussein infamously ordered the use of poison gas against his own people in the 1980's and used "human shields" in 1990. He was dispatched by the most direct of means.

After being told that Hussein had and was ready to use all manner of weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, nuclear - he was deemed a threat that had to be dealt with harshly.

His nation invaded and overwhelmed by American and British troops, Hussein fled and hid. He was captured by U.S. troops, and was then tried, convicted, and hanged by Iraqi courts.

In North Korea, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il is a megalomaniac dictator who sees nuclear weapons and missile development as more pressing needs than the care and feeding of his people.

Here, Kim has had a better fate than Hussein. Much of this likely has to do with the fact that he actually has nuclear weapons - something Hussein could only dream about. Though his tests seemed to fizzle, they were nukes nonetheless, and the U.S. and four other interested nations have been negotiating with Kim's acolytes for years.

With the symbolic implosion of a cooling tower at North Korea's nuclear fuel processing facility, a potential crisis seems to have been avoided.

The third leg of the Axis is Iran, with which the U.S. has had poor relations for nearly thirty years. The big question is, what to do with Iran?

Iran has cycled through a procession of leaders, both political and religious, over the last thirty years, and so it is hard to point a finger at a single individual to rally public opinion. Iran, though, seems intent on drawing that attention to itself.

Whether it is direct threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf or the Straits of Hormuz, issuance of threats against the U.S. and Israel (including banners declaring "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" in military parades), or the recent test-firing of missiles capable of reaching Israel (going so far as to use PhotoShop to make it look like more missiles were fired than actually were), Iran's saber rattling seems designed to provoke a response.

Though the Bush administration correctly says that a military option is always on the table, my sincere hope is that we take the tack that we took with North Korea.

Unfortunately, preventing a conflict is not going to be easy. Iran is deliberately making Israel feel like it is backed into a corner. Iran's unfortunate and irrational animosity toward Israel could be its undoing, and the undoing of any chance for peace in the region.

Equally unfortunate, diplomacy is not seen as one the Bush administration's strong points.

On this one, though, we can't wait for an Obama administration. This is something Bush will have to deal with in his waning time.

If Iraq was the only example we had, I would not be confident that Bush could fix this one without force. But with the example of North Korea added to the picture, I think we have at least even odds of averting crisis.

Our troops, and civilian populations in Israel and Iran, would not be able to tell the difference between a declared war and an undeclared war. The result in either case is invariably death and destruction. For this last leg of the Axis of Evil, hopefully diplomacy will be the weapon of choice.