Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq

A devastating critique of America's military occupation of Iraq by one of the leaders of the global antiwar movement, Tariq Ali. Eschewing the liberal option of hand-wringing and the fashionable lurch to the right by some former leftists, Bush in Babylon stands apart from the morass of sycophantic books now being presented as serious analysis by mainstream publishers.

Detailing the longstanding imperial ambitions of key figures in the Bush administration and how war profiteers close to Bush are cashing in, Bush in Babylon is unique in moving beyond the corporate looting by the U.S. military government to offer the reader an expert and in-depth analysis of the extent of resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq. The sum is a characteristically revealing blend of politics, history, and culture proposing that the U.S. war on Iraq marks a historical shift in imperial occupation and resistance that will mark the whole of the twenty-first century.

On 15 February, eight million people marched on the streets of five continents against a war that had not yet begun. A historically unprecedented number of people rejected official justifications for war that the secular Ba'ath Party of Iraq was connected to al-Qaeda or that "weapons of mass destruction" existed in the region, outside of Israel.

More people than ever are convinced that the greatest threat to peace comes from the center of the American empire and its satrapies, with Blair and Sharon as lieutenants to the Commander-in-Chief. Examining how countries from Japan to France eventually rushed to support U.S. aims, as well as the futile U.N. resistance, Tariq Ali proposes a re-founding of Mark Twain's mammoth American Anti-Imperialist League (which included William James, W.E.B. DuBois, William Dean Howells, and John Dewey) to carry forward the antiwar movement. Meanwhile, as Iraqis show unexpected hostility and independence, rather than gratitude, for "liberation," Ali is unique in uncovering the depth of the resistance now occurring inside occupied Iraq.

"[A] plaintive, choppy rant instead of an organized, thorough analysis....Ali's summary of history from inside the radical Arab left...is intended as 'a warning to both occupier and resister' that the current course of history is toward more violence and inequality." Publishers Weekly

"Ali's style is vigorous, his narrative compelling." Karen Armstrong

Claiming that war profiteers close to President George W. Bush are now cashing in, one of the leaders of the global antiwar movement offers an in-depth analysis of the extent of resistance to the United States occupation of Iraq.

Bush in Babylon is above all a history of Iraqi resistance against empires old and new. Imperial interventions in the past created a layer of collaborators who could only be removed via a revolution: but the tragedy of Iraq is also self-inflicted. The radical colonels, courageous communists and burnt-out Ba'athists failed to establish a stable and just democratic republic, thus enabling a return visit by imperialism.

Ali argues against the view that sees imperialist occupation as the only viable solution to bring about regime-change in corrupt and dictatorial states. He argues that economic, Political and strategic interests are clear.

The bestselling history of the resistance in Iraq that vitalized the antiwar movement.

Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker, long-time political activist and campaigner, and very much in demand as a commentator on the current situation in the Middle East. He has written over a dozen books on world history and politics, including the bestseller The Clash of Fundamentalisms, five novels, and scripts for both stage and screen. The first novel in the Islam Quintet, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, was awarded the Archbishop San Clemente del Instituto Rosalia de Castro Prize for Best Foreign Language Fiction published in Spain in 1994 and, like The Book of Saladin, has been translated into several languages.

Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: Living with the Enemy 1
2 The Jackals' Wedding 18
3 An Oligarchy of Racketeers 42
4 Colonels and Communists 66
5 Ba'athism, Saddam and Gumhurriya 102
6 War and Empire 144
7 Empires and Resistance 172
App Christopher Hitchens and the First Gulf War 199
Index 209