A Brief History
On January 29, 2002, US President George W. Bush coined a new phrase in his State of the Union Address to Congress, labeling Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil.”
Digging Deeper
Bush accused these states of being “regimes that sponsor terror,” a highly charged topic in the US after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Bush apparently liked the sound of his new designation and used the phrase often in his remaining years in office.
The allusion in the phrase to “Axis” would harken back to the “Axis Powers” of World War II, consisting of Germany, Japan, and their allies, and the invention of such a label is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire.”
Not surprisingly, Iran, a country labeled as a sponsor of terror coined a counter phrase, the “Axis of Resistance,” including itself along with Syria and the Islamist group Hezbollah as members.
Question for students (and subscribers): Would you add any other countries to the Axis of Evil? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Fisher, Scott. Axis of Evil World Tour – An American’s Travels in Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Kindle, 2011.
Wong, Dwayne. The Axis of Evil. Kindle, 2022.
The featured image in this article, a map by とある白い猫, has been released into the public domain worldwide by the copyright holder of this work.
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