![]() He expected his words to be chopped apart and altered beyond recognition, as is the fate of much presidential speechwriting, but his words were ultimately read by Bush nearly verbatim, though Bush changed the term axis of hatred to axis of evil. "Had the Axis somehow won the war, its members would quickly have turned on one another." Iran, Iraq, al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah, despite quarreling among themselves, "all resented power of the West and Israel, and they all despised the humane values of democracy." There, Frum saw the connection: "Together, the terror states and the terror organizations formed an axis of hatred against the United States."įrum tells that he then sent off a memo with the above arguments and also cited some of the atrocities perpetrated by the Iraqi government. "The Axis powers disliked and distrusted one another", Frum writes. In his book Frum relates that the more he compared the Axis powers of World War II to modern "terror states", the more similarities he saw. Saddam Hussein's two wars, against Iran and Kuwait, were just as reckless, Frum decided, and therefore presented the same threat to world peace. While Americans needed no convincing about going to war with Japan, Roosevelt saw the greater threat to the United States coming from Nazi Germany, and he had to make the case for fighting a two-ocean war.įrum points in his book to a now often-overlooked sentence in Roosevelt's speech which reads in part, ".we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again." Frum interprets Roosevelt's oratory like this: "For FDR, Pearl Harbor was not only an attack-it was a warning of future and worse attacks from another, even more dangerous enemy." Japan, a country with one-tenth of America's industrial capacity, a dependence on imports for its food, and already engaged in a war with China, was extremely reckless to attack the United States, a recklessness "that made the Axis such a menace to world peace", Frum says. Roosevelt's "date which will live in infamy" speech given on December 8, 1941, after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Frum says he began by rereading President Franklin D. Essentially, the story begins in late December 2001 when head speechwriter Michael Gerson gave Frum the assignment of articulating the case for dislodging the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in only a few sentences for the upcoming State of the Union address. Frum explained his rationale for creating the phrase axis of evil in his book The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. The phrase was attributed to former Bush speechwriter David Frum, originally as the axis of hatred and then evil. The term "axis of evil" is itself a portmanteau of the Axis powers of WWII ( Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan) and the Cold War era “ Evil Empire” (the Soviet Union as described by Ronald Reagan). Other countries were later added to the "axis of evil" by US politicians and commentators. In response, Iran formed a political alliance that it called the " Axis of Resistance" comprising Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. The countries originally covered by the term were Iran, Ba'athist Iraq, and North Korea. The notion of such an axis was used to pinpoint these common enemies of the United States and to rally the American populace in support of the War on Terror. He used it to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction. It was used in Bush's State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the 9/11 attacks and almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and often repeated throughout his presidency. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. ![]() The phrase " axis of evil" was first used by U.S. "Beyond the Axis of Evil" included Cuba, Libya, and Syria (orange). JSTOR ( January 2012) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)īush's "axis of evil" included Iran, Iraq, and North Korea (darker red). ![]() Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. ![]() This article needs additional citations for verification. ![]()
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