William Hague has warned that Iran and North Korea may be the next targets in America's sights.

The former Conservative leader, a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, has said that Britain and America must stick together and tackle further threats to world security once the conflict in the Gulf has been won.

Echoing President Bush's "axis of evil" speech, Hague says in a newspaper interview on Monday that "there will be a need for a strong US-UK alliance, with other countries part of that coalition as they choose, to deal with terrorism".

"And we have to keep a close eye on the weapons programmes of Iran, and yes, the behaviour of North Korea needs putting back in the box," he said.

The Richmond MP feels that Europe has not yet grasped the strength of the commitment in Washington to deal with terrorism and security threats post-September 11.

"We are the people sympathising with somebody with a bereavement, and they experience the bereavement," he argued.

"Imagine the difference in the personal emotions that that creates in a family or among friends."

But while he backs Tony Blair's stance over Iraq and the Atlantic alliance, Hague feels foreign policy successes won't distract from the central theme that the prime minister's "domestic agenda is not succeeding".

Ministers are "genuinely baffled" he said, because "they hold summits and set targets and allocate money to all the public services and nothing happens very much, and in some cases they even deteriorate, and they don't really understand why that is".

But he said that the Conservative Party has failed to capitalise on Labour's faults because of political "fashion".

"I think I underestimated how long it takes for fashion to change. There is a fashion in politics and I hadn't fully appreciated that before," he said.

"And when you're out of fashion, you stay out of fashion."

Firmly back in the spotlight after a number of acclaimed Commons interventions over Iraq, Hague dismissed talk of a comeback.

In the Guardian interview he described himself as "phenomenally busy" writing a biography of Pitt the Younger, fulfilling his constituency MP role and carrying out a range of directorships and consultancies.

"I don't think I've ever enjoyed life as much as in the last 18 months."