Axis to grind.

• Position: Comment - Military policy

There was something almost pathetic about George W. Bush's attempt to make his fight against terrorism akin to the fight against the Nazis.

In his State of the Union address, he famously evoked the comparison when he said that North Korea, Iran, Iraq, "and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil."

That's a big stretch.

North Korea and Iran have both showed signs of opening up to the West over the last four years. Diplomatic efforts could bring them even closer to a rapprochement. Bluster and stigma will only alienate them.

What's more, the idea that North Korea, Iran, and Iraq are somehow working together to take over the world is laughable. Iran and Iraq hate each other and waged a devastating war against each other in the 1980s--back when the United States was supporting Saddam Hussein. There is no evidence today that they are allied together or with North Korea. So Bush was falling on his axis when he tried to make that claim.

And he was guilty of gross distortion, especially in regard to Iran. He said that "an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom." While Iran's conservative clerics do wield a lot of power, President Mohammad Khatami, a moderate reformist, was democratically elected in a huge upset in 1997 and reelected overwhelmingly last June.

"By the standards of the region, it would be hard to argue that there's any country making more steps toward democracy than Iran under Khatami," says Chris Toensing, executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) in Washington, D.C. "Bush's rhetoric certainly strengthens the hands of conservative forces who want the Iranian people to believe that the West is a demon and there's nothing to gain in opening up. It lets the conservatives portray the reformists as traitors."

Bush also hypes the threat against the United States when he says "freedom is at risk." As horrific as the attacks of September 11 were, freedom was never at risk, and the existence of the United States was never in peril. During World War II, the survival of the free world was at stake, as were the lives of millions of innocent people.

Bush is exaggerating the risk for several reasons, on top of the fact that "evil" is his favorite word.

First, doing so helps solve his existential dilemma. Before September 11, he was the most immature fifty-five-year-old in the country, with no clear idea of why he became President. The attacks gave meaning to his life, and the more...