Did the Iraq war simply reflect the unitary decision by the U.S.
state to assert its interests in the global political economy or was it the
result of co-operation by a group of allied capitalist countries to secure
access to oil in the Middle East? Alternatively, did the use of military force
reflect the interests of an emerging transnational state? My latest article
with Adam Morton, entitled ‘Axis
of Evil or Access to Diesel? Spaces of New Imperialism and the Iraq War’ is
now published in the journal Historical
Materialism and attempts to address these questions.
We analyse the relationship between geopolitical and capitalist
dynamics underlying the decision to go to war. Importantly, we argue that only
through a focus on the internal relation
between geopolitical and global capitalist dynamics can we begin to comprehend
the way the Iraq War contributed to the continuation of capitalist accumulation
through what we refer to as a strategy of bomb and build.
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