The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

REMEMBER the Axis of Evil? That was a term very much in vogue back in the days of US President George W Bush, and the charter members of this putative unholy alliance were Iran, Iraq and North Korea. The term was coined in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address before both houses of the American Congress. That was at a time four months after the devastating 9/11 terroristic attacks on New York and Washington orchestrated by Osama bin Laden. The US was transformed by those hijacked airplane crashes, and it has not fully recovered from them.

Now, there are murmurs of a change in the membership roster of the Axis of Evil. Two of the stalwart charter members remain – Iran and North Korea. Iran is still a militantly hostile theocracy whose government is dominated by steadfastly anti-US and anti-Western clerics and their civilian subordinates. US and other Western media often clutch at any scintilla of dissent in Tehran or elsewhere, sometimes involving almost Medieval-sounding restrictions on women. Any rumour of active dissidence is magnified.

The theocrats in Tehran well remember the lessons of their takeover from and overthrow of the Shah 43 years ago: If those in power appear to relent, weaken their grip or loosen the reins of authority, the seeds of their own demise are sown. The Iranian autocracy shows few cracks, and continues to rule with a heavy hand and clenched fist.

It is true that oil-rich Iran has the economic means to support a substantial middle - and upper middle-class society, full of men and women who have the means and desire to enjoy a Western lifestyle. Iran is a powerhouse in the Middle East, without whose active support or at least acquiescence no lasting, or perhaps even temporary, peace will be possible. Iran’s population is overwhelmingly Shia Muslim, differentiating it significantly from virtually every other nearby Sunni Muslim nation in the Middle East.

There are linguistic differences among these neighbours also. Linguists have compared some differences between Persian Farsi, spoken in Iran, and standard modern Arabic, spoken elsewhere in the region, to differences between French and English. There are lots of cognates and the alphabets are similar, but the differences are not trivial. Experts report that a speaker of either Farsi or Arabic with no knowledge of the other could pick up a newspaper, recognize some major words and roughly know what topic it was about, but not understand the details.

The Iran nuclear deal, negotiated by the Obama administration in 2015 and including NATO members, Russia and China, placed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump pulled out of the accord three years later, loudly complaining about its deficiencies. Some of his complaints were valid, and the Biden administration has not yet been able to reconcile these flaws in the context of a renewed effort to revive the pact.

The chasm between the US and Iran does not appear to have been significantly narrowed since Trump left office.

North Korea? Its charter membership in the Axis of Evil is quite secure. Pyongyang’s own supreme leader, president for life Kim Jong-un, who inherited this militant, desperately impoverished country from his father, has stepped up his saber-rattling and nuclear weapons testing programme since one-time summit buddy Trump left office. He also is apparently seeking to develop the ICBM capacity to directly threaten the US mainland.

What does this megalomaniac really want? Does he really believe he can develop his military as a credible menace to the US? Is all this chest-thumping designed to compel the US to draw down or even withdraw its formidable military presence in South Korea or even Japan? Many international observers feel that this benighted, isolated regime will eventually collapse from its own glaring social and economic inefficiencies and singular focus on military matters, like the USSR did over 30 years ago. When the Soviet Union went out of business, so too, in short order, did its satellite and client, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Eventual reunification of Germany has proven to be a monumentally onerous task. The shadow of the former East German regime, with its dimly lit streets and startling contrast to the steadily burgeoning prosperity of West Germany, remains to this day. The corporate takeover of East Germany by West Germany has been very difficult, and is still incomplete. It has been a major drain on the German and other European economies for more than a generation.

If North Korea does implode as East Germany did, how would its potential integration into a unified Korea evolve? It is difficult to imagine that this process would be smoother than German reunification, and it’s easy to suspect that it would be even more problematic. Neighbouring giants China and Russia would likely insist on de facto neutrality and demilitarization as a condition for their acquiescence; negotiating this would be the major diplomatic challenge for any future American government.

So two of the charter members of the Axis of Evil remain. The third, Iraq, has less frequently dominated the headlines in recent years. The massive American foreign and military policy blunders in Iraq are well-documented and largely acknowledged. The American defeat and killing of Saddam Hussein, occupation of the country and attempts to install democracy have faded from the news.

Which rogue international renegade has settled into Iraq’s seat at the Axis of Evil table? Why, it’s Russia!

Vladimir Putin has now been misbehaving on the international stage for at least a decade. He is clearly driven by a 19th Century-style irredentist revanchism in his determination to overturn and reverse the Russian national humiliation represented by the collapse of the Soviet Union. He began with relatively minor transgressions in the Caucasus region occupied by former Soviet republics Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan along Russia’s southern flank.

Then Putin pushed all his chips to the centre of the table, going all in on his plan to invade, dismantle as an independent state and fully occupy or at least fundamentally influence neighbouring Ukraine, even annexing some portions where local sympathies may rest with Moscow. The Russian president seems likely not to prevail in this effort, but we may still unfortunately only be in the initial stages of a protracted conflict.

As this Russo-Ukraine War nears its first anniversary, Putin has found a willing partner in Iran. The two nations have apparently been dealing in drones, with Iran supplying them to Moscow in order to replenish Putin’s dwindling supply. What does Iran get in return? It hardly needs oil. There is speculation that some Russian technical advice on nuclear fuel development is the quid pro quo.

Senior US officials told CNN that while Russia still opposes development of Iranian nuclear weapons, “under today’s conditions, under which US-Russia relations are extremely bad and Russian-Iranian relations are getting better, we think the equation looks quite different for Russia.”

Relations between Moscow and Tehran have certainly been uneven historically. In fact, as the result of the Constantinople Agreement of 1915 during World War I, the Russian tsars and the British Empire colluded to partition Iran (called Persia until 1935) into two spheres of influence for their own economic and geo-strategic benefit.

That was then. This is now. Politics still makes strange bedfellows.

England bow out of the World Cup

ENGLAND bowed out of the World Cup on Saturday, losing to France 2-1 when captain Harry Kane missed a penalty shot late in the game. News reports were full of tales of this missed opportunity, but the French were both deeper and superior enough that they won without playing at their best. English fans will have to wait for four more years for their team’s redemption.

Still, the English did squander a good chance for their first World Cup triumph in 56 years. Conditions were favourable, inasmuch as traditional powers Brazil, Germany, Spain and Italy had already been eliminated or failed to qualify earlier this year.

Kane is actually better partnered on the front line with his Tottenham club in the English Premier League than he is with this English national team. Alas, his principal partner with Spurs is South Korean Son Heung-min. Son’s team exited earlier in the tournament.

Meantime, on Tuesday Argentina dispatched weary Croatia to secure a place in Sunday morning’s 10:00 finale. A championship match against France might be unforgettable.