Who invented axis of evil

He feels compromised. Reformers inside the government, who had advocated a rapprochement with the United States, were put on the defensive. Recalling that time, Crocker shook his head. It was Crocker's view, in other words, that the speech in itself closed the door not just on US-Iran cooperation against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but also on the potential for Iran to change its stance toward the United States.

At this point, while Iran had conducted significant research and development on its nuclear program, it had a relatively small enrichment program of only a handful of centrifuges. By , when Bush left office, it had 5, centrifuges. Its program grew to about 20, centrifuges by the time Iran and the world powers reached this year's nuclear deal.

The loss of potentially increased cooperation in Afghanistan surely did not help US efforts there, either, given Iran's significant intelligence and military reach in the neighboring state.

As for North Korea, that country's hostility toward the US and its many bad practices go too far back, and are too deeply rooted, to be tied to one speech from But the "axis of evil" speech certainly did not help. Just under a year after the speech, North Korea announced it would formally withdraw from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, under which non-nuclear states promise not to develop nuclear weapons.

In its letter announcing the withdrawal, North Korea claimed this was in response to its inclusion in the axis of evil and its fear that it would be targeted by Bush's policy of preemptive war. This was almost certainly an excuse; North Korea had long pursued nuclear weapons, regardless of US rhetoric toward the country.

But it may have nonetheless not been entirely a lie. Jean du Preez and William Potter wrote at the time for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may in fact have concluded, based in part on a speech that appeared to single out North Korea for invasion, that the US posed a threat worthy of a nuclear deterrent.

Kim Jong Il may have decided after 30 years of being directly and indirectly threatened by U. The authors rightly emphasize that this would just be one factor of several explaining North Korean behavior, if it motivated the decision at all. But the point is that there's no real reason to believe the speech helped things with North Korea, but there is reason to suspect there's at least a possibility that it helped accelerate North Korea's drive for a nuclear weapon.

The "axis of evil" speech, in other words, may well go down in history as one of the biggest blunders in foreign policy rhetoric in recent American history. The fact that even the speaker's own father, George H. Bush, sees the address as a mistake is a reflection of that fact — and could help cement the consensus of the speech as a grievous and regrettable moment.

Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Having many speechwriters ensures that the president can pull the speech out of his pocket, perhaps not even having read it carefully, and he can be wonderful and gracious and emotional.

He can give those people what they deserve for their heroism," explained Frum. And just like a lawyer helps the client make the best case the client can, or like an editor helps the writer make the best book the writer can, so I think a speechwriter helps his principal make the best speech he can, even if he may not necessarily agree with all of it," explained Frum. That must come with no small frustration. You are sitting in the White House next to the most influential people in the world, and you want to make your mark, but you need to do this carefully.

You shouldn't try for more influence as a writer than you're entitled to. But you're in the building, so you can make suggestions and argue for ideas. That's where the real influence shows up.

By doing your work, you acquire the right to be heard. But sometimes — and this happens to everybody up to the vice president and the president's wife — the president will say, 'Thank you, but I don't agree,'" Frum elaborated. Frum rejected claims that the 'axis of evil' speech worsened the position of the United States, which is sinking in Iraq, is finding it difficult to contain North Korea, and Iran is on its way to being nuclear.

I think this is childish. Children believe that when you give something a name, you call it into being, and if you don't give it a name, it doesn't exist. What is your suggestion for the Iranian problem? But because Iran is so technologically primitive, and because its armory is Russia, it is not difficult for the nations of the West to ensure that each step the Iranians take to try to tilt the balance in their favor, in fact might make things worse by providing Israel with more accurate bombs and missiles.

There are many arguments about what went wrong in Iraq. The US decided to use a very light military force to defeat Saddam, and then to maintain a large and prolonged occupation afterwards.

This was premised on the idea that the United States will quickly help bring to power an Iraqi provisional government that would work toward elections under someone like Ahmad Chalabi. Once the State Department and the CIA argued that they don't want Chalabi, and there isn't anyone else who can lead a provisional government in their eyes, a prolonged US occupation was needed that could begin the political process, but then you need a big army.

And so we have two pieces that did not fit: a light army, and a heavy occupation. It has opened our eyes to the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of dictators. The detractors, who include most of Europe and the developing world, see the axis of evil speech more as a self-fulfilling prophecy that has set back the democracy movement in Iran, goaded North Korea towards nuclear brinkmanship and undermined any incentive Saddam Hussein might have had to disarm.

Bush himself has not used the phrase since summer, but Washington is now placing bets on whether it will resurface in the State of the Union address today. Whatever happens, its true father looks on in awe and pride. David Frum, a year-old Canadian who served for 13 months as a presidential speechwriter and helped coin the fateful phrase, has just written a book about the experience - a cardinal sin amid the hushed piety of the White House.

Speechwriters are supposed to be anonymous. We are supposed to associate the State of the Union speech, the rhetorical high point of the White House calendar, with the president alone, not with the paid hack in the back room.

In retaliation, Frum has been left out in the cold in Bush's Washington. His book, The Right Man, tells how the callow and unimaginative American prince was challenged by the horror of September 11 and responded Henry V-style, by showing his true mettle.

It is larded with chapter upon chapter of rightwing polemic, brimming with contempt for European "appeasers" and the "stinking bowl" of the Arab world. As so often with the most vituperative pamphleteers, Frum is in person genial and conciliatory. He argues that his former boss is misunderstood in Britain, mainly because of his Texan drawl and Bible-thumping ways. In fact, Frum suggests - and here he is surely stretching the hand of doctrinal friendship further than credulity allows - Bush has a lot in common with the average Guardian reader.

He even suggests the "Bush-as-Guardian-reader" idea would make a thought-provoking article. As one of the louder voices of radical neo-conservatism, such outside-the-box ideas are Frum's stock in trade and there are a lot of them in The Right Man - so many that they invite the creeping suspicion that the title does not just refer to Bush. But the book is also a well-written memoir of Frum's short adventure in the administration which just about lives up to its sales pitch as the "first inside account" of the Bush White House.

Frum talks about Bush's sour, watchful presence, in contrast to the jovial hick he sometimes appears in public. He talks about the disconcerting grip evangelical Christianity has on the White House, its squeaky-clean gentility and generally low level of intellectual curiosity. The president, Frum tells us, is "sometimes glib, even dogmatic; often uncurious and as a result ill-informed; more conventional in his thinking than a leader should be". Most interesting of all, The Right Man tells the story of how the axis of evil got its name - an unnerving tale of rhetorical accident by which a catchy phrase ended up driving policy.

It begins when Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, approaches Frum a few weeks before the pivotal State of the Union address and tells him, "Here's an assignment.