I wouldn’t go nearly so far as calling Iran an ally but they were cooperating with us against our common Taliban foe. And I think that a strong case can be made that they have caused much less damage to the US than our so-called allies, Bush’s friends the Saudis. The axis of evil reference to Iran by Bush was one of the worst of his foreign policy blunders.
Iran has been the chief sponsor of terrorism the world over since 1979. Bush was spot on in his assessment of Iran.