Baghdad, Iraq ? U.S. President George W. Bush’s assessment that terrorist groups, Iraq and other countries make up an “axis of evil” was criticized Thursday in the Mideast, where it increased concerns a fellow Arab might be a target in the U.S.-led war on terror.

Iraq wasn’t alone in feeling threatened by Bush’s State of the Union address this week _ but Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday it was an honor to be targeted by “the most hated Satan in the world.” Elsewhere, Bush’s tone raised concern.

Bush said Iraq, Iran and North Korea _ which did not immediately respond _ pose a growing threat because of their support for terrorism and their efforts to build or acquire weapons of mass destruction.

“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world,” Bush said.

Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, in an editorial Thursday, was puzzled by Bush’s rhetoric.

Neither Iraq, Iran now North Korea, the Finnish paper said in an editorial Thursday, is “Washington’s friend but neither are they allies. North Korea is an impoverished relic of communism, Iran is an Islamic Shiite clerical state, and Iraq is a nonreligious dictatorship.”

In Norway, the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet said Bush appeared to have chosen military over diplomatic measures.

“A continuation of that policy will not lead to a lasting victory in the battle against terror, but will be a serious setback for a civilized and peaceful world community,” Dagbladet said in an editorial.

A Swedish daily, while saying it was unclear whether Americans would be safer because of any “general war against the world’s terrorists and rogue states,” had praise for Bush.

“Even if Bush entered the White House as a controversial and often mocked figure, he is now generally perceived not only as a president but as a statesman,” Svenska Dagbladet said.

Iraq’s official al-Iraq newspaper called the United States “the sole evil on earth,” echoing remarks Wednesday Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who said the U.S. administration was “the source of evil and aggression toward the whole world.”

Ramadan denounced the Bush statement as “stupid.”

The United States has warned Iraq to let in U.N. weapons inspectors or face unspecified consequences. Iraq has so far refused to let in the inspectors, who left in 1998.

Under U.N. resolutions, sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 can be lifted only after the United Nations is satisfied Baghdad has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq says it has done so.

Writing in the leading Lebanese An-Nahar newspaper, Gibran Tueni, said Bush comments show that “the Afghanistan file is about to be closed and the file of fighting terrorism in the Arab world is about to be wide opened.”

In Syria, the state-run Syria Times said, “It is hard to understand why the United States prefers to hide the evil face of Israel.”

Across the Mideast and the Muslim world, Washington’s perceived bias toward Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been cited as fueling Arab and Muslim anger that leads to violence against the United States.

Bush in his speech singled out as terrorist Hamas and Hezbollah, militant groups many Arabs see as champions of nationalist Palestinian and Lebanese causes.

Al Kifah Al Arabi, a Lebanese leftist newspaper, said in a banner headline Thursday: “Bush declares war on Israel’s enemies.”

In a statement released Wednesday in Lebanon, Hezbollah said Bush’s “threats will not terrorize us nor weaken our resolve to fight the occupying Israeli enemy and offer all forms of necessary support for the triumph of the Palestinians and the Palestinian people’s intefadeh.”

Commenting on Bush’s speech, Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud told reporters Thursday the government would not temper its support for Hezbollah.

Iran, included in Bush’s “axis of terror,” is a longtime backer of Hezbollah, which fought Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon for years and still strikes Israeli targets in a disputed area. Hezbollah is widely believed to be linked to 1980s suicide bombings in Lebanon that killed more than 260 Americans.

Iran also has condemned terror attacks on the United States and long had opposed Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers, who had harbored the accused masterminds of Sept. 11.

Early in the U.S. war on terrorism, American officials spoke of better cooperation with Iran. But in the past month, Washington has accused Iran of undermining Afghanistan’s new government and been angered by alleged Iranian involvement in an attempt to smuggle weapons to the Palestinians.

Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said at a gathering at his home Thursday that Bush on Tuesday was “talking like a person who is thirsty for blood, he threatens the countries and nations of the world,” Iranian state TV reported.

Iranian television reported Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi canceled a trip to New York, where he was to have attended an international economic forum, “in protest to the American threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Politicians in the Philippines and Malaysia were concerned Bush’s words signaled increased U.S. intervention in their nations, where the governments have been pressured to crack down on militants linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network.

But in Somalia, another Islamic nation cited as a possible theater for the U.S. anti-terror campaign, the fledgling government praised Bush’s speech and said it hoped for American help.