Axis of evil
[6] According to Frum, in late December 2001 head speechwriter Michael Gerson gave him the assignment of articulating the case for dislodging the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in only a few sentences for the upcoming State of the Union address.
Frum says he began by rereading President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "date which will live in infamy" speech given on December 8, 1941, after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
North Korea was added to the list, he says, because it was attempting to develop nuclear weapons, had a history of reckless aggression, and "needed to feel a stronger hand".
[7] A decade before the 2002 State of the Union address, in August 1992, the Israeli-American political scientist Yossef Bodansky wrote a paper entitled "Tehran, Baghdad & Damascus: The New Axis Pact"[8] while serving as the Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US House of Representatives.
In his 2002 State of the Union Address, Bush called North Korea "A regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
"[12] In 2024, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and his predecessor, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, cautioned about the formation of a new axis of autocracies led by China, but joined by Russia, Iran and North Korea.
[17] Iran and Iraq fought the long Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s under basically the same leadership as that which existed at the time of Bush's speech, leading some to believe that the linking of the nations under the same banner was misguided.
[2] In January 2006, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz implicated "the axis of terror that operates between Iran and Syria" following a suicide bomb in Tel Aviv.
[24] In 2006, Isaias Afewerki, the president of Eritrea, had declared in response to the deteriorating relations with the neighboring countries of Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen by accusing them of being an "Axis of Belligerence.
[28] From 2010 onward, the term "Axis of Resistance" has been used to describe an anti-Western and anti-Israeli[29] alliance between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias, and the Houthis.
[30][31] In 2012, author William C. Martel, in a short essay for The Diplomat, wrote of an "Authoritarian Axis", comprising China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela.
[38][39] During a March 2018 interview with the Egyptian media, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman referred Iran, Turkey and Islamist organizations such as the Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood as the "triangle of evil", to describe their current policies in the Middle East.
[42] In February 2022, American conservative political commentator Danielle Pletka called China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as the "new" axis of evil in an article for the National Review.
[44] In October 2023, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told CBS' "Face The Nation" that Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China are the new "axis of evil.
[47] In October 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described an axis of evil involving Hamas and Iran in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
[51] He argued they posed more of a threat than Nazi Germany in 1939, stating "They are more interdependent and more aligned than the original axis powers were" and that the world is facing "as dangerous a moment as any time that we've had since 1945".
[52] On July 23, newly appointed Army chief General Sir Roland Walker said in a speech that the UK faced danger from an "axis of upheaval" with threats from an angered Russia, that China was intent on retaking Taiwan, and that Iran was likely to pursue nuclear weapons.
