Too archaic.
Blackguard states?
Sounds racist.
How about naughty states?
Once the State Department decided to drop "rogue state" from its political lexicon, finding a replacement must have been a linguistic nightmare for Madeleine Albright and her elves. TIME.com's exhaustive trawl of the thesauri certainly yielded little by way of a satisfactory alternative catchall term for the seven countries on Washington's list of states allegedly sponsoring terrorism.
To be sure, it's hard to tar Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria with the same brush, and it's long been acknowledged by most foreign policy professionals that the list is essentially political; because the designation "terrorist sponsor" automatically puts states under U.S. sanctions, it's a policy lever against some of Washington's most intractable problem cases. So while North Korea's or Cuba's connection to terrorism today is widely assumed to be limited to providing a retirement home for a handful of aging terrorists from the '70s, keeping them on the list is a way of pursuing U.S. policy goals unrelated to terrorism.
Faced with growing pressures on different fronts to rethink some of those policies — moves in Congress to relax the embargo on Cuba, the desire to encourage Iran's reformist leadership and the need to coax Syria into talks with Israel, for example — Ms. Albright on Monday announced that the countries on the list would henceforth be termed "States of Concern." Sounds more parental, and by extension forgiving. Certainly better than some of the alternatives to "concern" — "States of Uneasiness," "States of Irritation," "States of Botheration" or "States of Fret" — and if it's grammatically somewhat questionable, so is the composition of the list it defines.
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Rather than finding a new catchall term, the State Department might have done better to assign each state on the list its own adjectival synonym for "rogue," to signify that each has its own unique way of annoying Washington. Herewith, TIME.com's suggestions; please send us yours: Cuba: Rascal
State
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Steven Myers had the inspired "inFidel State" for Cuba and "S'Damn State" for Iraq, while Vinnie Papa suggested we learn from America's children and dubbed Cuba the "Poopy Head State" and Libya the "You Throw Like a Girl State." Some readers preferred literate catchalls, such as Greg Ward's "Irascible States" and Gerald Reardon's "Dastardly States," while Bill Wallis offered "Doghouse States" and Joseph J. Porcello the more chilling "Ground Zero States." A Canadian cousin felt duty-bound to offer "Arrogant State" for a neighbor that makes up names for other states, but perhaps the most inspired suggestion of all came from a recurring error in which readers misspelled "rogue" as "rouge." TIME Daily thinks "Rouge State" would be perfect for Libya, whose leader wears more face paint than the celebrity formerly known as Tammy Faye Bakker.
More readers suggestions:
"In With the Wrong Crowd States or Punk States" — Steve Wiley
"Iraq: State of Ill Repute" — Patrick Peterson
"The Bad Guys" — 'Rob'
"Hooligan States" — 'BarbsBAK':
"Weasel State" — 'Shiser59'
"Immoral States" — Michael E. Wright
"How about Holier-Than-Thou State for our own somewhat benighted state, because were always right even when were wrong." — David A. Appling
"Iraq: Tenacious State; Libya: Fallacious State; North Korea: Obstinate State" — Brent Jacobs
"Creep States; Bad Hair Day States" — RuseArtist
"Non-conforming States" — Ed Smiley
"States in Time Out; Don't-make-me-come-over-there States" — 'AndyAMJE'
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