Literature / Bush Versus The Axis Of Evil

In 1998, in response to a terror attack in Tanzania, the US successfully bombed Bin Laden's hideout in Sudan in 1998, killing him. However, despite getting rid of one head of the Islamic fundamentalist hydra, new heads emerged on it, and Hezbollah is prepared to deliver the killing blow at the American "Satan". Meanwhile, Iraq is looking for a rematch against America, this time with George W. Bush as helm, and in North Korea, envying the wealth of South Korea during the FIFA World Cup, Kim Jong Il finally decides that reunification under Juche has come. All hell breaks loose after that.

Bush Versus The Axis of Evil is a timeline by Sorairo, who also authored The Footprint of Mussolini and the The Death of Russia. It can be seen in Alternatehistory.com here.

Tropes Include:

• 0% Approval Rating:
  • As the war raged on, it became clear that whatever Bush's support had have long been gone, and was a decisive factor in Bush deciding to serve only one term.
  • Eventually, Kim Jong-il's narcissism and ego costed him his country (not that he actually cared for it), his country's allies (China's Hu Jintao was enraged by Kim Jong-il's hubris when he negotiated a way out for him), and even his own supporters and family (Kim Jong-un allegedly didn't protest Kim Jong-il being kidnapped by South Korean agents and his own uncle Kim Song-ju in a trial testified that Kim Jong-il apparently killed his brother Kim Man-il by drowning when they were children and he was not born in North Korea but in the Soviet Union instead).
• The Alliance:
  • Japan and South Korea forge an alliance after the North Korean invasion, and settle down their ongoing dispute with little fanfare.
  • Iran, Armenia, and Israel later also form one, called as the "Alliance of the Ancients", with President Pahlavi as the person instrumental in bringing the alliance to reality.
• Allohistorical Allusion: Reza Pahlavi returning to Iran after the fall of the Islamic Republic and becoming President echoes how Simeon II of Bulgaria became Prime Minister of the country after the collapse of communism.
• Back from the Brink: It seems that Iran post-American invasion is fated to be balkanized, with their own new government not trusted by many Iranians. Then Reza Pahlavi was elected as President, and the Iranian warring factions have dropped their differences to save Iran from partition; namely, bombing the Arab separatists in Khuzestan, Iranian Kurds demanding Iraqi Kurds that they don't need rescuing, Azerbaijan's forage to Iranian Azerbaijan were crippled due to Iranian intervention and Armenian requests for help to fight Azerbaijan.
• Balkanize Me:
  • It seems that Iran after the American invasion will suffer from Balkanization, with major ethnic minorities wanting independence. But then came President Reza Pahlavi and he reunited the restless Iranian factions back after a failed Iraqi Kurdish and Azerbaijani invasion.
  • Egypt has been divided into a mainland Egypt controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood (but not fully imposing full Sharia law yet), and the Sinai where Egyptian military dictator Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi fled and bolstered by Coptic refugees and had agreements with both the United States and Israel.
• Bittersweet Ending: Sure, Iran became a democracy, Saddam was overthrown, and North Korea was gone, but the Chinese still occupy parts of a mostly-depopulated North Korea, Iraq is still fractured among Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish lines, Russia successfully annexed both Ukraine and Belarus, and the Republic of Korea has the hardline Unification Church leader as the current President.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Both Koreas do this to their Korean War tanks, the North Koreans using T-34s in their invasion of Seoul, and in the South's case, some South Korean war veterans saw the Sherman tanks in a military museum, have it refueled and refitted, and rolled out to hunt down North Koreans.
• The Cavalry: When a South Korean intelligence team tries to escape along with a kidnapped Japanese and her Korean family, they were surrounded by North Korean soldiers and are trapped and wounded. However, US fighter jets destroyed the pursuing North Koreans and Blackhawk helicopters evacuated them to safety.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: thoroughly defied and averted by the French, who kill Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah and help their former colonial subject Syria fight the JTJ with their own troops.
• Child Soldiers: North Korea liberally uses them in the conflict, with Kim Jong-il encouraging it in order to "initiate psychological devastation on their murderers". It is implied that Iran's Ayatollahs are probably doing the same thing.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Saddam executed his own son using a contraption in which he would be slowly strangled by one of his statues after a failed assassination attempt.
• Deadly Gas:
  • Kim Jong-il ordered Scud missiles loaded with poison gas to be fired not at US bases in Japan, but on the Japanese population centers like Tokyo and Yokohama.The death toll was about three thousand. Fresh from the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo subway attack, the Japanese response was full of rage against anything about North Korea.
  • Later when Pyongyang was surrounded by American troops, Kim Jong-il ordered a gas attack against the US forces. This was not forgiven by the Americans either.
• Deal with the Devil: With Sunni extremist and pro-Saddam militias now blowing up Shia shrines, the Americans cut a deal with a Shiite militia allied with Hezbollah to stop them. They also later cut a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan (who in this timeline, were not involved in 9/11 and were able to conquer all of the country).
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: The fate of Jang Song-thaek after he suggested a negotiated peace, with his erstwhile wife doing the execution.
• Defector from Decadence: Charles Jenkins, a former US soldier who defected to North Korea, eventually ended defecting back to the United States after being disillusioned with North Korea.
• Defiant to the End:
  • James Joseph Dresnok is this, refusing to speak in English and his last words before being executed by a firing squad being a declaration of loyalty to North Korea and the Juche ideology.
  • Kim Jong-il during his trial and execution. His last words were: “You can kill me, but Korea’s already dead.”
• Dirty Bomb: Kim Jong-il detonates a dirty bomb in Pyongyang. The reaction of Bush is to respond in kind, but was eventually prevented so due to Chinese insistence that Kim Jong-il accept defeat and exile.
• Draft Dodging:
  • A lot of Americans are not amused at the prospect of being drafted. Eminem made a Protest Song called "Fuck the Draft" and burned his draft cards along with others.
  • Iranians are not amused at being drafted either: with one draftee colorfully saying,“I’d rather press my face to a hippopotamus’s asshole after it chugged laxatives than go through that again. They swarmed on top of us like flies on Shit Mountain. As we took that head-on, I realised that life was just a shitty video game - one life, no continues.”
• The Dreaded: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was seen by many Arabs as just as bad as Saddam due to his fundamentalist Sunni rule and brutality in Iraq and Syria.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Iran, after years of the rule of the Ayatollahs, civil war, and invasion, had become a prosperous and relatively stable democracy thanks to the son of the last Shah, a moderate conservative as president and Marjane Satrapi, a former comic book author and a member of the socialist Tudeh Party. Not to mention that the Iranian people themselves have endeavored themselves to reconstruction, improving gender relations, and re-acquiring regional political clout.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • the Chinese soldiers who entered North Korea to secure the remnants of the Kim Dynasty were disgusted by the sites of North Korean prison camps.
  • FIFA might be an organization mired in corruption and shady dealings, but even they are horrified at the prospect of Qatar holding the World Cup after a brutal failed revolt by workers andd award it to Iran instead. Apparently FIFA officials said in the prospect of Qatar hosting the World Cup that “If the World Cup Final was played in a stadium literally made from the workers’ bones, the crowd would be taking skulls home as souvenirs.”
• Go Mad from the Revelation: The North Koreans troops invading Seoul were shocked at the prosperity of the South Koreans such as electronic stores and their gadgets, as well as well-stocked supermarkets, that they started to murder any South Korean who were unlucky to be left behind.
• Ghost Town: eventually the fate of most of Pyongyang, and as of 2024, most of the city was walled off due to radiation.
• Godzilla Threshold: Bush was forced to activate their nuclear arsenal when North Korea activates dirty bombs in Pyongyang. However, the Chinese were able to convince Kim Jong-il to resign and accept exile, finally relieving Bush of a need for a nuclear strike.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Hezbollah, which is largely a regional problem in our timeline, triggers this world's War on Terror by hijacking two planes into the World Trade Center and having two bomb attacks target the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish Community Center in Washington D.C.
• Holiday Ceasefire: American and Iranian forces managed to create one on Christmas 2002. American soldiers met Iranian soldiers singing Persian versions of "All I want for Christmas is You’" and were moved at the peace gesture, wanting to end this war as quickly as possible. They also arranged some impromptu soccer matches between the Americans and the Iranians, with the British soldiers apparently offended in calling football soccer and the Americans deciding that they could better results in basketball games, which they did. The Wrestling/WWE had hosted a Christmas wrestling match for US soldiers in Kuwait, and the audience and wrestlers' response is that whatever the reason this war started, they will be still be proud to be an American.
• [[Hypocrite]]: Iran bankrolled protests by foreign workers in Qatar, but they are not that different from Qatar: when Iran won the World Cup bid for 2022, they hired workers from their Iraqi vassal state to build their stadiums at very low pay.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite killing Bin Laden and the majority of the Al-Qaeda leadership, 9/11 was not averted; instead, it was Hezbollah who initiated the attack. Downplayed in how the attacks on the Pentagon and either Capitol Hill or the White House (which was thwarted in our timeline by a revolt of the passengers) are replaced with bombing attacks.
  • It seems that an alternate Islamic State group will will rise, and named the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, but with Abu Musa Al-Zarqawi as leader. However, they were eventually defeated by Syrian and Iraqi forces.
• I've Come Too Far: Bush was undeterred by protests surrounding the War on Terror, even by abandonment of certain allies like South Africa from the coalition. He believed that this might be the last chance to defeat Saddam, the Ayatollahs, and North Korea before they become too strong to be attacked.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Bashar al-Assad withdraws his forces as soon as possible when presented with an ultimatum to leave Lebanon or else face the consequences of having his forces stay in the country.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: North Korea sees the American distraction in Iran and Iraq as an opportunity to strike against South Korea. Unfortunately for them, they chose so during the semifinals of the World Cup in South Korea.
• Lighter and Softer: compared to The Footprint of Mussolini and The Death of Russia, but only relatively lighter; the wars were still brutal and causedd numerous casualties, and in contrast to the two previous works where nuclear weapons were liberally used, in this timeline, only North Korea managed to blow up a single dirty bomb in a dilapidated Pyongyang and Bush was relieved he did not have to retaliate after the Chinese convinced Kim Jong-il to go into exile.
• Make the Bear Angry Again: with America exhausted after the War on Terror, no one can stop Russia from intervening in Ukraine, which in the alternate 2004, was led by pro-Russian Viktor Yankukovych and is trying to stop the pro-democracy demonstrations. After that, Putin declared the Union of Slavic Republics, a Russia-dominated economic union of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
• MegaCorp: The Unification Church, thanks to their goodwill towards the former North Koreans and heavy investments there (albeit with sweatshop conditions), establish their chaebol which would be larger than the one they have in real life.
• Monumental Damage:
  • The bombing of Pyongyang sees the Juche Tower, Mansu Hill Grand Monument of Kim Il-Sung, and Arch of Reunification all blown up by American or South Korean ordnance.
  • The Battle of Tehran sees the Azadi Tower, the Golestan Palace, and Laleh Park be destroyed or otherwise devastated in the battle for the city.
• Multinational Team: as in OTL, the Coalition deployed against Iraq is composed of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and others. However due to the duration and emboldened opposition to the war, a few members such as South Africa left the Coalition.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Despite hating the Iranian leadership for involving them in the mess of 9/11, many Iranians chose to fight due to still perceiving Americans as invaders.
• Mystery Meat: Due to dwindling supplies, North Korean shops were reduced to selling "horse-meat". Only to turn out they were made from executed political dissidents.
• Never Found the Body: Kim Il-Sung's corpse was hidden allegedly in a secret location in Pyongyang after American bombings. When Pyongyang was poisoned by the radiation, it is assumed that the corpse was still in whatever location it was, made inaccessible due to the dirty bomb radiation.
• No Sympathy: Kim Jong-il dismissed North Koreans after their defeat as cowards and defeatists. It annoyed and disgusted the Chinese guards in his exile so much, one of them inadvertently called his girlfriend who was a South Korean intelligence agent and requested to be evacuated.
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Defied by Japan. after the experience of the Second Korean War and Chinese belligerence against the Republic of Korea, Japan, Shinzo Abe's government pursued an Israeli-style nuclear weapon program.
• Off with His Head!!: Saddam's final fate at the hands of Sunni jihadist Abu Musa al-Zarqawi.
• Offing the Offspring:
  • When Saddam found out that his son Qusay betrayed him, he had him captured and executed him in public.
  • This was the fate of Kim Jong-nam, via forced suicide, after he was similarly caught plotting against his father.
  • Kim Jong-il not so subtly tells North Korean mothers to do this to “spare” them the “horrors” of a world without Juche.
• Our Presidents Are Different:
  • Bush Jr is basically President Unmodified during his term during the Iraq War, though like in OTL, he is usually portrayed in media as President Evil or President Buffoon.
  • Paul Wellstone is President Minority (the first Jewish President) and tried to be President Personable, but his incompetence in handling the John Edwards situation had earned him a President Buffoon reputation.
  • On the South Korean side, Kim Dae-jung ends up almost as a President Target. Lee Hoi-chang is President Iron due to hardline stance on North Korea.
• Post-Soviet Reunion: in 2019, years after vassalizing Ukraine and Belarus through intervention, Vladimir Putin is comfortable enough to declare the Union of Slavic Republics.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: The North Koreans are infamous for doing this during their invasion of South Korea, particularly with the culture shock of South Korea being far more prosperous than North Korea sets in, most notably at Paju.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Christopher Hitchens delivers one on George Galloway on Larry King Live:
    Hitchens: At least what comes out of my mouth is significantly better constructed than what comes out my backside, George.
• The Remnant: Sinai was effectively the last stronghold of secularist Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood government took the rest in a brief civil war in 2012.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman:
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ends up a propagandist in this timeline instead of becoming the President of Iran between 2005 and 2013.
  • Quite a few YouTubers in our timeline end up conscripted during the War on Terror. James Rolfe as a private recalls an Iranian POW's rather potty-laced remark on being drafted.
  • Marjane Satrapi, author of the comic book Persepolis, becomes Reza Pahlavi's successor as President on the left-wing Tudeh Party ticket.
• Redeeming Replacement: Reza Pahlavi to both his father the last Shah, and the Ayatollahs. He managed to end the civil war in Iran, preventing the Kurds from Iraq and Azerbaijanis from benefiting from a land grab while Iran was still in the throes of civil war.
• Rightful King Returns: Played with; Reza Pahlavi does not want to become the new Shah, wanting instead to become an elected President of the new Iranian government, which he does, in a manner echoing the tenure of Simeon II of Bulgaria as Prime Minister of the country. But the Iranians very much see his return and election as President as a partial return to the pre-1979 Iran, hopefully without the mistakes his father committed.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A feature of the South Koreans during the War of Terror that epitomizes their experience is their desire for revenge on the North Koreans for their atrocities during their invasion of North Korea.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • after an unpopular Iraq and Iran war, with anti-war riots becoming daily occurrences in America, Bush decides not to stand for re-election in 2004.
  • When a PLA soldier of Korean descent cannot tolerate Kim Jong-il's hubris during his exile in China anymore, he requests his girlfriend, who was a South Korean intelligence officer, to sneak him out of the country while kidnapping Kim Jong-il.
• Shot at Dawn: How James Joseph Dresnok, an American soldier who defected to North Korea is executed after he is captured during the Second Korean War.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A lot of US soldiers get PTSD at the Iranian and Iraqi conflicts due to the brutality of urban fighting. Iranian soldiers also got PTSD as well, and when an Iranian soldier surrenders to a US soldier, the American also went to his knees and said that "You have nothing to be ashamed of - none of you do’. I never thought that a war could bring two peoples together, but I guess I was wrong."
• Shout-Out:
  • The artillery strikes in Seoul's downtown districts have been described as Gangnam Style.
  • The fictional authors about the Second Korean War were named Ryo Saeba and Kaori Makimura. Similarly Yang Wen-li is an author on post-Kim Korea, as well as Heihachi Edajima.
• Slave Liberation: attempted by the underpaid, effectively enslaved South Asian workers in Qatar in the 2010s, but were crushed by the Saudi Army. While the revolt failed, it scuttled Qatar's bid for the World Cup in 2022. Iranian involvement is widely suspected.
• Spark of the Rebellion: a workplace accident in Qatar in 2010 caused a walkout by indentured foreign workers and later started a revolt that results in it being crushed by the Saudis.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • The Alawites, Sunnis, Druzes, Christians, and Shias of Syria don't really like each other, but then Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi managed to take over eastern Syria, they rallied behind Assad and threw the JTJ jihadists out of the country.
  • Later, despite hating each other, Iranians under Pahlavi and Iraq join together to mop up the JTJ, with the Americans finally killing Al-Zarqawi for good.
• Tokyo Rose: Not one or two but three. The Iraqi Baghdad Bob (real name Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf), the North Korean Pyongyang Penelope, implied to be the North Korean announcer Ri Chun-hee, and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Bashar al-Assad’s Syria gets a glow-up in its international reputation as part of a “charm offensive” the regime executes after its withdrawal from Lebanon.
• We Have Reserves: How the Iranian, North Korean, and Iraqi forces view their army.