The New York Times has a scary story about President Bush’s obsession with the ‘axis of evil’. It seems that the ‘axis of evil’ comprises countries that might supply weapons of mass destruction of terrorists, at least that’s how the Bush administration seems to define it. There are two criteria for being on this list then: the possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the willingness to supply them to terrorists.

That indicates that there are two routes we can go here. The first is to destroy the capability these countries have to deploy weapons of mass destruction, and the second is to convince them that supplying them to terrorists is not in their best interest. Lumping them all into an ‘axis of evil’ seems to preclude the second approach. It also seems to indicate that these countries are willing to provide these weapons to terrorists already. If that’s so, why haven’t we seen any terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction?

If the reform movement in Iran fails, it’s going to be in no small part President Bush’s fault. There are elements in that country that have been moving closer to the United States over the past few years, and pretty much all of the freely elected leaders in that country are more liberal than the religious fundamentalists that still hold much of the power. That’s an encouraging trend. Rather than try to encourage that trend, we’ve announced that Iran is our enemy. Case closed.

When it comes to North Korea, who would we expect to understand them better, the Dr. Strangeloves that make up the shadow State Department, or the South Koreans? The South Koreans seem to want to give working with North Korea a shot. We’re going the opposite route. That’s stupid. Really stupid.

Iraq is a different kettle of fish. We went to war with them and failed to accomplish our goals, and we’ve been punishing them severely ever since. I don’t believe there can ever be any rapproachment with Saddam Hussein. My gut feeling is that another war with Iraq in the future is an inevitability — he’s too belligerent to just stand pat until he dies. In any case, he forms a “point of evil,” conjuring up an axis is just pathetic.