Some years ago, when the 21st century was still young, the president of the United States used a State of the Union address to familiarize the American people with an “axis of evil,” a group of countries aligned with one another, bent on terrorizing those of us who believed in freedom and democracy. The charter members of that “axis” were North Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. “I will not wait on events while dangers gather,” George W. Bush told the assembled Congress. “I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”
Twenty years later, the phrase “axis of evil” has become a laugh line, the president who uttered it derided by many, including the sole Republican who succeeded him in the White House. But there is indeed an axis of evil; it exists and flourishes to this day. Its aims are much the same as when Bush called it out, though its membership has evolved, as has the threat it poses. What is this axis, the term itself a nod to the enemy axis defeated by the victorious allies in 1945?
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