Does the president know where to stop?

What do Iran, Iraq and North Korea have in common? The answer from anyone with even a rudimentary notion of foreign affairs is – almost nothing.

Those three nations have different regimes, policies and interests. To lump them together with a speech-writer's formulation – "axis of evil" – as President Bush did in the State of the Union message, makes sense only if Bush wants to make things seem worse than they are.

The Bush administration is showing signs of not knowing where to stop. In wartime, this is always a danger. Flushed with victory, you raise your sights. Bismarck took Alsace and Lorraine, Napoleon and Hitler marched on Moscow. Japan attacked America. MacArthur pressed on toward China.

Bush has Iraq in his sights because, as he said in the State of the Union speech, "Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror."

Had he stopped there, we would have a serious policy option to consider: Nobody likes Saddam Hussein, but should we attack him now, 10 years too late, without any known connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda?

The danger of messing with Saddam is simple: He could be replaced by a fundamentalist regime.

But Bush didn't stop there. Iran, Iraq's enemy, also is part of the axis.

Diplomacy normally follows the rule that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Nations try to turn foreign rivalries to their own ends. Nixon's opening to China was intended to affect Soviet behavior, which it did.

If you happen to have bad relations with mutual enemies, as America does with Iran and Iraq, you apply the principle of comparative advantage: You ask – with which nation does greater potential exist for improvement?

Prospects had been slowly improving with Iran. President Mohammed Khatami condemned the Sept. 11 attacks on America, and Secretary of State Colin Powell exchanged handshakes with the Iranian foreign minister at the United Nations.

Small steps, but the opening with China began with small steps.

Bush says Iran "exports terror while an unelected few repress the people's hope for freedom." He accuses Iran of meddling in Afghanistan.

But why wouldn't Iran, and Russia as well, have an interest in neighboring Afghanistan? And won't their roles be more compatible with U.S. interests if we have good relations with them, rather than condemning them?

Bush's axis is meaningless. It is a sign of setting a risky course because he doesn't know where to stop.

What of North Korea?

North Korea has about as much in common with Iran and Iraq as it does with Zimbabwe. If Bush defines his axis by the presence of unsavory leaders, Zimbabwe deserves a mention, and why not throw in Sierra Leone and Burma? If he wants to define it by terrorism, why is North Korea, which has far fewer terrorists than our friends the Saudis, in it?

In his State of the Union message, Bush sabotaged Persian Gulf diplomacy and once again slapped South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in the face. Kim wants to relaunch his "sunshine policy" toward North Korea. He has been undercut by America, his friend and ally, because Bush needs a justification for his missile defense plans.


