Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth about North Korea, Iran, and Syria

From Publishers Weekly
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Though this rhetorical workhorse is first misquoted, then dismissed by Cumings in the early pages of this essay collection, Santayana’s maxim nonetheless best describes the importance of this volume to the national debate over current U.S. foreign policy. Cumings (Korea’s Place in the Sun), Abrahamian (Iran Between Two Revolutions) and Ma’oz (Syria and Israel) offer up detailed, swift accounts of the willfully forgotten history of America’s involvement in the politics and governance of North Korea, Iran and Syria-three countries that George W. Bush labeled the "axis of evil." There is probably little in these essays to startle or convert readers who are already well-informed about these countries’ histories, but general readers are likely to find this survey illuminating and thought-provoking. Cumings’s chapter on the etiology of the Korean conflict suffers from hyperbolic prose and excessive sarcastic reference (e.g. he refers to George Bush, Sr. as "Daddy"). In contrast, the measured tone of Abrahamian’s chapter on Iran and Ma’oz’s chapter on Syria offer a welcome rhetorical balance. The authors’ distinct voices and regional concerns find common ground when they proposal a radical shift in U.S. foreign policy-one towards rapprochement as a "constructive brand of Pax Americana" and away from the "containment" of ideological enemies. The national debate over "anticipatory self-defense" has been altered by political events since the authors completed these essays in the fall of 2003, but the provocative comparisons drawn between the current occupation of Iraq and previous misadventures in nation building remain cogent and timely. This collection adds to the necessary complexity of the discussion of Iraq and makes its best case against the doctrine of preemptive war.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Three renowned experts set the record straight on the countries caught in the crosshairs of the Bush Administration. "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion...and you allow him to make war at pleasure."—Abraham Lincoln The Bush administration has thus far left little doubt regarding its intentions for the unfortunate countries that compose the so-called "Axis of Evil." It has already disposed of Iraq, while North Korea and Iran ignore US threats at their peril. The same goes for Syria, the object of an intense propaganda campaign in the waning days of Operation Iraqi Freedom—when it was reported that contingency plans for war with Damascus were under review. Yet Americans know very little about these three "evil" countries beyond what the Pentagon has told them. In Axis of Evil, noted experts on each country set the record straight, confronting relentless fear-mongering with hard facts. The authors explore each country's history and internal politics alongside the spotty record of past US interventions—including the war in Korea and the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Iran's elected prime minister in 1953. While entertaining no illusions about these despotic regimes, Axis of Evil demonstrates that the whole truth is more complicated.

About the Author
Bruce Cumings is the author of North Korea: Another Country, Korea's Place in the Sun, and Parallax Visions. He teaches at the University of Chicago. Ervand Abrahamian is the author of Tortured Confessions, Khomeinism, and Iran Between Two Revolutions. He is Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York. Moshe Ma'oz is the author of Syria and Israel and Assad. He is a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


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Is there an axis of evil? Perhaps, but its headquarters may be in Washington. Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator, is not a nice man. But he has this in common with North Korea's would-be liberator, writes longtime Asia hand Cumings (Univ. of Chicago): "Like Bush, he has to contend every day with the knowledge that he would not be where he is without Daddy's provenance." Daddy, Kim Il Sung, wasn't a nice man either, but, Cumings argues, he was essentially forced into his role as Dr. Evil: isolated by virtue of his communist affiliations by the Americans after Korea was relieved of its Japanese occupiers following WWII, he and his followers were walled up north of Pyongyang and kept from the community of nations by an "ill-understood American hegemony" that preferred Japanese collaborators to resistance leaders. Why the saber-rattling? With Bush, it appears to be personal: "In a recent discussion . . . he blurted out, 'I loathe Kim Jong Il!' " So it is with Iran: the American government propped up a hated shah, then professed surprise when the Khomeini revolution painted the US as the bad guy. There's not a shred of evidence that the current Iranian government helped Osama bin Laden perform his evil work, writes Iran specialist Abrahamian (CUNY), but that didn't keep the Bush regime from charging that Iran was a bedfellow of terrorism. No matter: writes Abrahamian, "The Iranian regime, despite its problems and weaknesses, is not a pack of cards perched to collapse because of much huffing and puffing in Washington and Los Angeles." As a onetime ally of Iraq, Syria is slightly more problematic, acknowledges Israeli scholar Ma'oz (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem). Ma'oz suggests that whileBush's bluster is unlikely to earn any friends in Damascus, a little friendliness-and a resumption of foreign aid-would render the Ba'ath regime more cooperative. All in all, a persuasive argument that the axis-of-evil trope is as illusory as those elusive WMDs.


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