'Axis of Evil' was verbal overkill

By David Polhemus

It should now be abundantly clear to President Bush that the "Axis of Evil," the hallmark of his State of the Union speech, plays a lot differently in Pyongyang than Peoria.

In his trip to South Korea last week, he was rather sharply confronted with the fruits of his own rhetoric.

From a Madison Avenue point of view, "Axis of Evil" is a brilliantly conceived epithet. It mixes two powerful images:

• "Axis," a term first used by Mussolini to describe the World War II alignment of Germany, Italy and Japan, today evokes the fascist alliance that brought global conflagration, suggesting that Afghanistan is but an introduction as was the Spanish Civil War.

• "Evil" owes unabashedly to the curse placed by President Ronald Reagan on the foundering Soviet Union, which he called the "Evil Empire."

Bush's formulation, however, poorly withstands close inspection. Iraq, Iran and North Korea have little in common and can't hold a candle to the global threat the Soviets once presented. Iran and Iraq have not reconciled since their horrific eight-year war in the 1980s, and North Korea's Stalinist ideology is as hostile to Islam as it is to any other religion. Pyong-yang is peddling missile technology, but so is China, which Bush last week called a "steady partner." North Korea once practiced some horrific international terrorism, but retired some years ago.

The label "axis of evil," of course, made for a punchy speech, causing a great stir in Washington, snorts of derision in Europe and near panic in Seoul, where President Kim Dae-jung has been trying through his "Sunshine Policy" to ease the frightening standoff in which a million troops have faced each other for half a century across a deserted strip of land 2 1/2 miles wide and 150 miles long. President Bill Clinton called it the most dangerous place in the world.

The fact that North Korea, were it to launch an attack against the South, would face quick and total defeat is small consolation to South Koreans, who recognize that their modern capital would first be devastated by artillery fire, with projections of hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Bush is right, of course, to be impatient at the lack of North Korea's positive response to Kim's peace initiatives. For the South, engagement so far has been all give with no get, and many South Koreans share Bush's frustration.

Indeed, it is altogether possible that Bush's initial tough approach to North Korea, much as it humiliated Kim on his first Washington visit, will finally convince Pyongyang that if extortion — collecting fuel oil and nuclear power plants for promises to retire weapons systems — was its game, the game is up.

But in Asia, where "face" is paramount, no amount of angry threats and taunts are likely to thaw the icy hostility of the North.

That truth may have dawned on Bush as he found himself a short distance from the Korean demilitarized zone, faced with delivering a speech a bit beyond his verbal agility:

• Because the North Koreans regarded his "axis of evil" speech as a virtual declaration of war, Bush was obliged to pledge that the United States has "no intention of attacking" their territory.

• Because South Koreans are yearning for peace and reunification on their peninsula, they needed to hear Bush say that despite his hostile tone, he is ready for talks with Pyongyang any time, any place.

• And because many of them serve as a "tripwire" near the DMZ, the 37,000 U.S. troops in Korea wanted to hear what it means for them when Bush targets North Korea for the next phase of his drive to wipe out terrorism.

No president is that nimble, and no speechwriter's phrase — no matter how catchy — is worth the headaches it has brought to the administration's Korea policy. (It also is a setback for hopes of an opening with Iran.)

So what compelled Bush to give birth to the "axis of evil"? Is it a PR device calculated to rally the domestic audience to stay the course in the coming war against terrorism, wherever that leads, with international ramifications either miscalculated or ignored?

Or could it suggest something as simple as a paucity of vocabulary? Sure, a regime that starves its children while feeding a massive army is evil, but so are child molesters, rapists and drug dealers. The best description of North Korea Bush could come up with after peering across the DMZ into North Korea was "despotic," rather like some bosses and mothers-in-law.

Far more constructive, and hopeful, than any ad-hominem attack is Bush's offer at week's end to work with Chinese President Jiang Zemin to open negotiations with Pyong-yang. As China has emerged from the madness of the Cultural Revolution, it is best able to show Pyongyang a way out. Bush should also seek intermediaries to approach Iran, which is nearly as poor a fit in his "axis of evil" as is North Korea.

David Polhemus is an editorial writer for The Advertiser and has traveled frequently in Asia. You can reach him at dpolhemus@honoluluadvertiser.com