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Iraq: Horror Without End

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was never about liberation, democracy, or weapons of mass destruction, but rather an act of naked imperialist aggression that has now been exposed in its true character. The torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib is not an aberration or the work of a few "bad apples" — it is the logical and inevitable expression of an occupying power that relies on terror to sustain its control over a hostile population. Woods argues that the brutality on display is not incidental to the occupation but structurally necessary to it, and that the official response (scapegoating low-ranking soldiers while protecting the chain of command) reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of the entire project. The article further claims that the occupation is strategically bankrupt: the original war aims are in ruins, the insurgency is spreading, and the US faces a protracted conflict that will eventually produce a political crisis at home, analogous to Vietnam.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the classical Marxist theory of imperialism, drawing directly on Lenin's characterisation of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism — specifically, the notion that imperialist domination necessarily generates resistance and requires systematic violence to maintain itself. Woods deploys the concept of state terrorism as the normal method of imperialist rule, situating Abu Ghraib within a historical continuum that includes Nazi-occupied Europe, French Algeria, British Northern Ireland, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This is not a moral equivalence but a structural one: all occupying powers, regardless of their professed ideology, resort to the same methods because they face the same contradiction between the claim to be liberators and the reality of ruling against the people's will.

The article also draws on the Marxist understanding of racism as a by-product of imperialism — not merely prejudice but a functional ideology that dehumanises the colonised and thereby licenses violence against them. The line "fascism is only the distilled essence of imperialism" is a direct reference to the Marxist tradition that sees fascism not as an aberration but as the logical endpoint of imperialist logic when it is applied domestically.

There is also a clear debt to Trotsky's analysis of the relationship between war and revolution. The argument that prolonged imperialist war will eventually produce a political earthquake at home echoes Trotsky's analysis of how the First World War generated revolutionary crises across Europe, and anticipates the later Marxist literature on the dialectic of imperialist overreach and domestic radicalisation.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in April 2004, at a moment when the occupation was visibly unravelling. The key conjunctural features are:

  • The Fallujah crisis: The US had been forced to abandon its plan to crush the city militarily, a de facto admission that brute force was politically unsustainable. This marked the first major strategic setback of the occupation.
  • The Abu Ghraib scandal: The photographs had just been broadcast on CBS, shattering the narrative of the US as a benign liberator. Woods correctly identifies this as a turning point in domestic and international opinion.
  • Rising US casualties: April 2004 was the bloodiest month of the conflict to that point, with 126 US servicemen killed. The article notes that for the first time, less than half of Americans believed the invasion was the right decision.
  • Iraqi opinion: A CNN-USA Today poll showed that 56% of Iraqis wanted US and British troops to leave immediately, and over two-thirds believed US forces made no effort to protect civilians.
  • The political manoeuvre: The US was seeking a UN Security Council resolution to internationalise the occupation and bring in troops from India, Pakistan, and potentially France — a sign of desperation rather than strength.

Woods's prediction that the war would "drag on for years, with a steadily increasing cost in blood and treasure" and that this would eventually produce a political crisis in the US has been borne out by events, though the crisis took the form of the rise of the anti-war movement (2005-2007) and the eventual electoral defeat of the Republican Party in 2008, rather than the more explosive "political earthquake" he anticipated.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is an early statement of the IDOM analysis of the Iraq War, which was developed in a series of subsequent articles and interventions. Key continuations include:

  • The question of the Iraqi resistance: The article does not analyse the class character of the insurgency or the relationship between the nationalist, Islamist, and left-wing currents within it. This is taken up in later IDOM articles, particularly those discussing the role of the Iraqi Communist Party and the need for a revolutionary socialist alternative to both the occupation and the Islamist militias.
  • The domestic political crisis: The article predicts an "earthquake" in US politics but does not specify its form. Later IDOM analysis tracked the rise of the anti-war movement, the Obama phenomenon, and the limits of electoral opposition to imperialism.
  • The broader regional dynamic: The article notes that al Qaeda now has bases in Iraq thanks to the invasion, but does not develop the analysis of how the occupation fuelled the rise of ISIS. This is addressed in later IDOM articles on the Syrian and Iraqi crises.
  • The economic dimension: The article focuses on the political and military logic of the occupation but does not discuss the economic interests at stake (oil, reconstruction contracts, the role of Halliburton, etc.). This is covered in other IDOM pieces on the political economy of the Iraq War.

Relevant Against the Stream episodes and later IDOM articles include those on the tenth and twentieth anniversaries of the invasion, the analysis of the rise of ISIS, and the broader Marxist critique of the "war on terror."

Connections

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The theoretical foundation for the analysis of imperialism as a system that necessarily generates war and occupation.
  • Trotsky, The War and the International and The Revolution Betrayed: The analysis of how imperialist war creates revolutionary possibilities, and the critique of Stalinist and reformist parties that fail to seize them.
  • Rosa Luxemburg, The Junius Pamphlet: The argument that imperialism's barbarism is not a deviation but the logical outcome of capitalist development.
  • C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: The analysis of how colonial violence dehumanises both the colonised and the coloniser, and how resistance transforms consciousness.
  • IDOM articles on Vietnam: The comparison between Iraq and Vietnam is explicit in the article, and the IDOM corpus contains extensive analysis of the Vietnam War as a case study in imperialist overreach and domestic radicalisation.
  • IDOM articles on the "war on terror": The broader critique of the post-9/11 imperialist offensive, including the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and later Libya and Syria.

Key Quotes

  1. "The invasion of Iraq stands exposed for what it always was: an act of naked aggression against what was supposed to be a sovereign state, leading to the forcible occupation of a country by foreign troops against the will of the people. Naturally, such a state of affairs can only be sustained by the massive, uncontrolled and unlimited use of force."

  2. "Underlying the ideology of every imperialism is the notion of national (and racial) superiority. The occupying forces regard the Iraqis as inferior beings. This sense of superiority can be variously expressed. In an extreme form it is seen in the abuse of defenceless prisoners. Their captors do not even regard them as human beings, so why bother to respect their human dignity. Racism is, after all, only a by-product of imperialism, and fascism is only the distilled essence of imperialism."

  3. "The present revelations are acutely embarrassing for Washington, which has emphasised repeatedly its record of liberating the Iraqi people from the inhumane repression of Saddam Hussein. Yes, the Iraqi people suffered terribly under Saddam Hussein – but they did not suffer a fraction of the horrors that are now being daily inflicted on them by their 'civilized' guests from overseas."

  4. "All the original plans of US imperialism are now in ruins. As we reported yesterday the Americans are facing a ferocious insurgency on two fronts that threatens to spread throughout the country. The only response of Bush is to pour in yet more American troops: yet more poor, working class black kids will be sent into the meat grinder; yet more American and Iraqi lives will be shattered. And for what?"

  5. "Sooner or later the American public will learn the truth about the war in Iraq, just as they learned the truth about the war in Vietnam. When that happens, expect a political earthquake in the USA. And the longer the earthquake is postponed, the more violent it will be."