While the nation’s pundits are praising the President for his State of the Union speech, conservatives are falling all over themselves lauding Bush for explaining why the weakest state sponsor of terrorism — Iraq — ought to be attacked.
Pundits, conservatives and Bush, who declared ‘we are winning’ the war, are wrong. The truth is that Bush has failed to confront the axis of evil he named in last year’s speech.
One year after Bush named three arch-enemies of freedom — state sponsors of Islamic terrorism — the enemy is stronger than ever. In Iran, an Islamic dictatorship is locked in power, still sponsoring terrorism, and building its arsenal. While the discovery of nuclear weapons surprised U.S. intelligence — last year, experts had estimated Iran would acquire nuclear weapons in five years — a grass roots rebellion has gone unsupported by the United States.
In Iraq, a socialist dictatorship remains in power, still sponsoring terrorism, and America has completely ceded its right to self-defense to the United Nations.
In North Korea, the communist dictatorship still rules, still sponsors terrorism, and, when the U.S. expressed shock by the discovery of its nuclear weapons, threatened America with direct nuclear attack. More recently, Bush’s diplomatic efforts — through South Korea — were ignored by North Korea, which, this week, refused to meet with negotiators.
In fact, North Korea’s hostility has not only gone unchecked — it has been rewarded. After naming North Korea part of an axis of evil, Bush sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to negotiate, an unmistakable message that the President’s tough talk is unmatched by action. Following the declaration that the communist state possesses nuclear weapons, North Korea ominously threatened to turn America into “a sea of fire.” Bush *did* nothing.
Last year, Bush declared: “[T]ime is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”
Bush has reneged on his pledge — he has waited, he has stood by, and he has permitted the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons. Yet America is wrapped in the gauzy fantasy that, somehow, because he seems sincere, Bush’s mixed defense policy– part-Powell, part-Rumsfeld — will somehow bring us victory, safety and peace.
By any standard, Bush has failed to declare, let alone wage and win, war on our enemies. For the sake of America’s survival, Bush’s talk-don’t-act philosophy must yield to a mighty strike at the enemy’s source of power, with or without the approval of others.
One year ago, President Bush focused his State of the Union address squarely on America’s enemies: state sponsors of terrorism. Bush identified what he called an “axis of evil” — Iran, Iraq and North Korea — and the last 12 months have vindicated his assertion in horrifying detail. Back then, Bush promised an end to the states that sponsor terrorism. On Tuesday night, Bush broke his solemn pledge to strike back at the enemy — and he did so when America most urgently needs defense.
