|
|
|
Map of Middle East |
Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/05
How the Axis of Evil Metaphor Changes Iranian Images of the USA
Daniel Heradstveit and G. Matthew Bonham
June 2003
Abstract
The respondents feared an American attack, and regarded their membership in «the Axis of Evil» as a stab in the back after Iranian help in Afghanistan. This demonisation was seen overwhelmingly in terms of American geopolitical designs, ignorance and downright irrationality—an expansionist superpower that is dangerously out of control. The WTC attack initially caused a strengthening of Iranian national unity and a more coherent foreign policy, but most of the respondents regard «the Axis of Evil» as killing the nascent dialogue with the USA stone dead and coming as a godsend to the conservatives and the ultras.
