So how has the Axis of Evil been doing these days?

From now on, every time the Republicans try to use the North Korean issue to scare voters, we need to stand up and point out the truth.  Ever since January of 2002 when President Bush gave his Axis of Evil speech, the three countries he mentioned -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- have all become more dangerous.  How does this translate into being strong on national defense?

Call it "civil war" or just plain old "sectarian violence", Iraq is now one of the most dangerous places on the planet.  There are 800-900 attacks each day.  The most alarming stat of all is only five percent of the Sunni insurgency consists of al Qaeda -- meaning when you factor in the radical Shiites, al Qaeda's influence in the overall insurgency is about half that (2.5%) or less.  In Afghanistan, all of the insurgency consists of al Qaeda and Taliban.  We only have 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, and 150,000 in Iraq.  You mean to tell me that Afghanistan is one-seventh as important as Iraq?  Come on.  So by going to war there, we turned a country that was fearful of stateless terrorism into an unstable hotbed of radicals.

Iran and North Korea are building their nuclear arsenal.  What has President Bush done other than talk?  These threats have helped the Iranian president nationalize his country around his rule, and quell the younger generation, which tends to favor democratic reform.  North Korea, well we know about them.  They went from the capacity to build maybe two nuclear weapons in 2000 to now having the capacity to build twelve.

Again, how does this translate into being strong on defense?  Democrats need to speak up.  The Axis of Evil is now the "Excess of Evil" -- as Newsweek's Christopher Dickey writes.