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‘Evil’ in Foreign Policy

‘Evil’ in Foreign Policy. One of the epithets for which former US President George W. Bush became infamous was used in his State of the Union Address just four short months after 9/11.

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‘Evil’ in Foreign Policy

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  1. ‘Evil’ in Foreign Policy

  2. One of the epithets for which former US President George W. Bush became infamous was used in his State of the Union Address just four short months after 9/11.

  3. In that address he described three nations – Iran, North Korea and Iraq – as members of an ‘Axis of Evil’ constituting a clear and present danger to global peace.

  4. In this soundbite, the then leader of the free world expressed the belief that ‘evil’, a deeply religious concept, existed in geopolitical and geostrategic entities

  5. Later that same year, Bush told West Point graduates: ‘We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name’

  6. America under George W. Bush did more than name calling or finger pointing.

  7. America’s major response to the perceived conflict between good and evil is what Stephen Chan (2005) calls a ‘War on Evil’, a conflation of the terms ‘War on Terror’ and ‘Axis of Evil’ (p. viii) – an attempt to eradicate evil from the geopolitical sphere.

  8. This takes on a particular moral flavor when seen in the light of America’s self-understanding as a ‘savior nation’ (Ryn, 2003, p. 387), having a divine mission to rid the world of evil and establish democracy and civilization.

  9. Calling international enemies ‘evil’ is not new – Ronald Reagan, in 1980, described the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’, which he pledged to fight.

  10. The US in turn was described by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran as the ‘Great Satan’, the main source of corruption in the modern world.

  11. Even within the borders of the US, in the post-9/11 world, some internal critics of US foreign policy call America ‘the main source of evil in the world’ while other critics see it as a major agent in combating evil

  12. Similarly, as some Islamic groups view the West, and the US in particular, as the source of evil and corruption in the world, inevitably they see attacking America and its allies as a religious duty.

  13. The apocalyptic features of Bush’s speeches are mirrored in those of bin Laden: both constructed their conflict as a Manichean struggle of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness or the camp of the faithful versus the camp of the infidels

  14. The heightening of the friend-foe relationship in the horrific modern world to a final apocalyptic battle between Christ and the Antichrist or between the true Islam and the ‘Satan’ USA, the West, apostasy and blasphemy, are part of the modern phenomenon of fundamentalism.

  15. The US believes that out of evil will come a promised legacy of good, but only if it, acting as the divine agent, defeats evil and delivers the good(s) of freedom and democracy.

  16. No other nation could provide the moral framework to lead the fight against evil.

  17. In Christian theology it is not nations that rid the world of evil, but rather God and the people of God when they exercise moral conscience.

  18. In conclusion, discourse on evil in international political dialogue, and particularly in US foreign policy, is deeply moral in its character. Apart from calling into question the nature and meaning of evil, it questions the role of individuals and nations in the ‘fight against evil’.

  19. Only God has the absolute and definitive role in eradicating evil.

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