re: 'axis of evil' the term was oddly enough coined by Bush's
Canadian speech writer David Frum, (son of the broadcaster Barbara Frum) he was asked to write a speech justifying a war.
Initially he used the term axis of hatred (which later got changed to evil) and since an axis has to have more than one point in order to be an axis it was decided to add Iran. N. Korea was added later for good measure.
Not only was Europe surprised by this term so was much of Congress.
- the irony, is that while Iraq is threatened with war if it doesnt
fess up on its production of wmd's North Korea is told that the US has no intentions of invading it EVen as it thumbs its nose at the rest of the world by kicking out the inspectors and vowing to make its own missiles. (which no doubts leaves some in the US state dept.
regretting the axis of evil speech).

-I agree with Jack the Sailor,
with respect to the old argument of deterrence that some others make,-
deterrence really works only if there are two major nuclear superpowers and if you know who nuked you. (what if a US city suddenly gets hit with a nuclear bomb - who are you going to attack?
if you dont know whos responsible.) (everyone? the russians for good measure, or maybe just the middle east.)
its extremely destabilizing for the rest of the world to have too many
'rogue'nuclear states.