Mr. Chairman, 
 
Thank you for including me in your important deliberations on how the United States can best deal with terrorism.  I will make only 3 brief points. 

First, I believe that President Bush was not only accurate in his description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil,” but he was wise to use that memorable phrase in his State of the Union address.

 I know that others disagree.  The French foreign minister considers the president’s point “simplistic.”  Chris Patten at the European Union Commission, sitting comfortably in Brussels, has warned us against “…taking up absolutist positions and simplistic positions.”

 All of this reminds me of the reaction to President Reagan’s use of the phrase “empire of evil” as a description of the Soviet Union.  There was hand wringing all around when he said that, much of it in the same allied capitals from which we now hear criticism of President Bush’s candid, straightforward characterization of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

The Soviet Union was indeed an empire and it was certainly evil, and Ronald Reagan’s willingness to say it straight out contributed mightily to the political assault that ultimately brought it down.  The critics didn’t realize it at the time--some may not accept it even now--but Ronald Reagan’s much derided words had historic political consequences that I believe he anticipated when his critics did not.

The “axis of evil” may well prove to be of similar importance, albeit on a lesser scale.  Recognizing the lines of cooperation that now exist among these three regimes, focusing attention on their collaboration--which is not free of differences, to be sure--is necessary if we are to come to terms with the threat posed by those regimes supporting terrorism which also posses, or are working to acquire, weapons of mass destruction.

Second, I believe that President Bush’s response to September 11, which has been to go after regimes supporting terrorism, is exactly right--and long overdue.  It represents a fundamental, and brave, shift in policy.  It is this essential new approach that accounts for much of the misgiving about American policy among our faint-hearted allies.

But unless we take the war on terror to the terrorists and to the states that offer them sanctuary and all manner of assistance, we will lose this war.  We are an open society.  And if we wish to remain one, as we surely do, we must deny terrorists the freedom to scheme and organize against us by making sure that they are on the run.  Terrorists who must sleep in a different place each night out of fear that they will be apprehended by the authorities will be far less able to carry out acts of terror than they are now, comfortable in Baghdad, Teheran, Damascus and elsewhere.  That is why it was essential to destroy the Taliban regime in Afghanistan; and it is why we must support a regime change in Iraq.

Third, while we will always prefer to operate in close collaboration with our friends and allies, our interests are not identical to theirs.  It is understandable that governments in Paris and Berlin and Brussels and The Hague do not feel the same sense of danger that September 11 elicited among Americans.  They are not reading daily intelligence about threats to their citizens, as are we.  They were not victims on September 11.

The rhetorical cliché that September 11 was an attack on civilization may be true.  But those who died were here on our soil.  We must be careful about the weight we attach to our own lofty words: most of our closest allies are not threatened as we are and it is natural that they will not happily accept the risks that we must accept to cope with that threat.

So there may be times when we have to be prepared to act alone.  For no government can base its most fundamental self-defense on a show of even friendly hands.

Richard Perle is a resident fellow at AEI.