—DRAFT—
2
I. INTRODUCTION
In the post-9/11 era, terrorism—and the perceptions of, and reactions to it—has become a
prominent consideration in the crafting of U.S. foreign policy. According to President Bush, one
of the two central goals of U.S. policy today is to prevent the principal state sponsors of
terrorism—specifically, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, the “Axis of Evil”—from threatening the
U.S. or its friends and allies. Specifically, the President has said that “…States like these, and
their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world….In any
of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
1
The ongoing U.S.-led war on terror seeks to defeat terrorist groups that seek to inflict
damage upon the United States or its interests around the world through the “4D” strategy.
2
The
sweeping scope of this effort, and its concomitant impact upon nearly all other facets of U.S.
foreign policy, gives a clear indication of the importance attached to it by the Bush
administration. The extension of this campaign to include nation-states (such as the
aforementioned three) that sponsor or support terrorist groups represents a crucial moment in the
shaping of the U.S. response to 9/11—and indeed, a turning point in U.S. foreign policy since the
end of the Cold War. Yet, the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war was applied to a state that was,
by the subsequent admission of the administration, not associated with the attacks of 9/11: Iraq.
The articulation of the doctrine also dramatically raised the profiles of Iran and North Korea as
potential targets in the war on terror and set a high standard for all other countries, exemplified
by the President Bush’s statement that “…every nation in every region now has a decision to
make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
3
In the eyes of administration,
“…for every regime that sponsors terror, there is a price to be paid. And it will be paid. The
allies of terror are equally guilty of murder and equally accountable to justice.”
4
Thus, the U.S. strategy to combat terrorism directly targets state sponsors as an essential
dimension of its approach to denying support for the groups and individuals that carry out the
terrorist operations themselves. Like many aspects of the war on terror, it builds upon
preexisting foundations of U.S. policy—albeit, with greater vigor and determination. For
example, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq have been formally designated by the U.S. Department of
State as state sponsors of terrorism for years (along with Syria, Libya, and Cuba, and Sudan).
In the case of Iran, a country long cited by the U.S. as a leading state sponsor of
terrorism, the Bush administration faces a complex challenge that it still has not definitively
engaged. An internal review of policy toward Iran that had been taken up early in the
administration’s term has been effectively shelved, a victim of internal divisions within the
administration, external events, and the mixed trajectories of developments in Iran’s turbulent
and seemingly opaque domestic politics. After briefly discussing the nature of terrorism and its
1
2002 State of the Union address, available online at the White House website, as accessed on 6/16/03:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html
.
2
The “4D” strategy consists of: (1) defeating the organizations of their global reach; (2) denying them of support
and sanctuaries; (3) diminishing the conditions that enable their existence; and (4) defending the U.S. and its
interests proactively. See the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, February 2003 (Washington, DC, the
White House); last accessed on February 24, 2004 and available online at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/counter_terrorism/counter_terrorism_strategy.pdf
.
3
Remarks by President George W. Bush on 20 September 2001, quoted in the U.S. Department of State’s 2001
Patterns of Global Terrorism report (online at
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2001/
).
4
Remarks by the President to United Nations General Assembly, U.N. Headquarters New York, New York,
November 10, 2001. Available at
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/conflict/bushunsc.htm
. Last accessed on
February 17, 2004.
Convention