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Slavoj Zizek. Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle. London: Verso, 2004. 188 pp.
One might say of this book it is Zizek enjoying his own "unilateralist moment" for when he isn't discussing Iraq -i.e., most of the time -he is either putting the boots into erstwhile friends and comrades (Laclau, Miller), or recycling gags that work better "live."
So what does he claim? His perhaps most controversial claim is that the US knew that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and that is why they risked a ground war. This is of course highly plausible. But in typical fashion he takes it a step further and proclaims that even if Iraq did have WMD, the US's ideological position would still be false. He then holds out the idea that perhaps we're not being paranoid enough, perhaps Bush not only knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, but also knew that invading Iraq could not guarantee peace in the Middle East, but on the contrary would insure instability in the region for years to come. Does anyone doubt this? The last...