From MIM Notes 180  PART I  FEBRUARY 15, 1999

REVIEW 
THE WAR AGAINST IRAQ: A HANDBOOK FOR ANTI-IMPERIALISTS

by Arthur Henson
Unity & Struggle Publications 1992 

With a return to the shooting portion of Amerika's 
bombs & sanctions war against the people of Iraq, 
interest in the war has increased. This book presents 
many important arguments about the war that are worth 
reviewing as the anti-war movement gains new life in 
face of the recent overt bombing attacks.

The stated goal of Hensons's The War Against Iraq 
is to bring theory to the anti-war movement. Henson 
correctly explains that the low tide of anti-war 
activism after 1991 was "not because the war ended, 
but because of ideological weakness: problems of 
thought which hinder the ability to act."(p.7)

Henson continues: "For the most part the antiwar 
movement has no theory. Most forces within this broad 
and diverse movement still have not grasped the 
fundamental political contradiction of the war, that 
of imperialism versus the national sovereignty of Iraq 
in conflict over oil production. This is a problem of 
what to think about the war.(p. 7)

In the early 1970s, Iraq nationalized oil 
production. This hurt the imperialists because (a) The 
giant monopoly oil firms were no longer directly paid 
by the Iraqi people to drill and refine oil, and (b) 
Iraq was now in a better position to negotiate a price 
for its oil, instead of having a price rammed down its 
throat. 

In the early 90s, Iraq struggled within OPEC to 
raise the price of oil. Amerika responded by launching 
the Gulf War and splitting the oil-producing states. 

The War Against Iraq never clearly discusses the 
class nature of the Hussein regime. For example, he 
does not discuss Iraq's military strategy: 
Conventional war fought on the terms of the 
imperialists. This is the only method of war open to a 
bourgeois government that does not have the deep 
support of the people. Revolutionary people's war is 
the only method of warfare that can defeat a better 
armed enemy because it uses the support of the people 
as a weapon. Bit by bit, the imperialists can be 
driven out, as in China and Vietnam. Bourgeois 
governments fear arming their populace with such ideas 
and arms because the next logical step would be to 
sweep the domestic bourgeoisie out of power too.

We should defend the sovereignty of countries 
attacked by the United States. If the U.$. military 
respected the official border of other countries, that 
would be progress for the world's people. We must 
train Amerikans that "their" military shouldn't be 
"policing the world." This is part of our duty to 
support the toiling and oppressed masses in the Third 
World. It is also our duty to understand that 
bourgeois governments in the Third World often collude 
with the imperialists to exploit their own people, and 
mis-lead the anti-imperialist movement. Only the 
proletariat can successfully lead a thorough anti-
imperialist movement, because the proletariat has 
nothing to lose but its chains and therefore no reason 
to sell-out to the imperialists.

The War Against Iraq  was published by Unity and 
Struggle (U&S), a phony Marxist-Leninist group. We say 
"phony," because U&S cannot even tell the difference 
between socialism and state monopoly capitalism: U&S 
considers China to be "heading" towards capitalism, 
despite the fact that it has been on the capitalist 
road since the overthrow of the Gang of Four in 1976. 
Unity & Struggle is reviewed in MIM Theory 12 ($6.00) 
and 13 ($8.50).