Regime Unchanged: Why the War on Iraq Changed Nothing [Paperback]

Milan Rai (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0745321992 | ISBN-13: 978-0745321998 | Publication Date: August 20, 2003

This work dissects official propaganda to argue that public support for the war on Iraq was secured through lies and distortions. Two crucial distortions involved misrepresenting the UN Resolutions on Iraq, and lying about the position of President Chirac in the weeks before the war. The author of the popular "Arrow Anti-War Briefings" also reveals that the British Government was forced to frantically draw up contingency plans to withdraw from the invasion force only days before the war began, in large part because of the power of the global anti-war movement.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a magnificent exposi of the lies that propelled the criminal attack on Iraq." -- John Pilger"As the controversy over the war and its aftermath deepens, this is an immediate, detailed and illuminating analysis that bri ngs together a remarkable range of material. Milan Rai does us all a service by providing so much of the evidence that is fuelling that controversy." -- Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK."Milan Rai is one of the wisest war resisters of our time ... Now more than ever, we rely on his reasoning and integrity." -- Kathy Kelly, Cofounder, Voices in the Wilderness, USPraise for War Plan Iraq: "It explains why Bush's war against Iraq has little to do with Saddam's tyranny and everything to do with Washington's infinite greed for oil and power." -- Mike Davis "The clearest and most persuasive explanation of the reasons not to go to war with Iraq that anyone could wish for." -- George Monbiot

About the Author

Milan Rai founded the British branch of Voices in the Wilderness and co-founded the anti-war group ARROW, a London-based direct action and anti-war information group. His two previous books are War Plan Iraq and Chomsky's Politics. In 1993 he was awarded the Frank Cousins Peace Award for Research by the Transport and General Workers' Union.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Pluto Press (August 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745321992
• ISBN-13: 978-0745321998
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,941,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed expose' of Bush/Blair warmongering, October 14, 2003

By 

William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Regime Unchanged: Why the War on Iraq Changed Nothing (Paperback)

This book brilliantly exposes Bush and Blair's criminal aggression against Iraq, shredding every last one of their lies. Yet the book also reveals the very defective politics of the anti-war movement, which prevented it from stopping this war, and will prevent it from stopping future wars.

How can we stop wars? The answer is not more of the same, not a stronger anti-war movement with ever-bigger marches, more direct action, anti-war electoral actions and better campaigning. All these we did earlier this year, to the utmost extent, and if they were the answer, there would have been no war.

The answer is something different and new and much more difficult: we have to cut out the root of all wars, capitalism. Without we do this, nothing that we do will stop wars, just as we cannot prevent cholera without stopping filthy water. Only the working class in power will do the job.

The US/British war against Iraq was illegal, immoral, unnecessary and anti-democratic. The UN opposed it. The attack killed 10,000 Iraqi civilians. Iraq was not a threat: it had no WMD. Bush and Blair wanted the war, overriding their peoples' wishes.

Yet after detailing Blair's ceaseless warmongering, Rai somersaults to defend him, writing that Blair "was most reluctant to go to war with Iraq." Why? Because to Rai, social democrat Blair must be better than Republican Bush, when in fact they are the same.

Rai compares postwar Iraq to 1945, when the USA and Britain forcibly crushed resistance in Italy and Greece and restored reactionary regimes throughout much of the world. True - but Rai goes on to write that the Soviet Union serviced and cooperated with this postwar reaction. Actually, the Soviet Union, wherever it could, aided the resistance and defeated US-British schemes to restore reactionary regimes.

The 2003 war was for Iraqi compliance and oil, not for Iraqi freedom and democracy. In Iraq, the USA has cancelled local elections, as in Najaf, and will postpone national elections indefinitely, as it did in Vietnam in the 1950s, because popular forces would win.

Now the people of Iraq must rebuild their country, not foreign troops or humanitarian agencies or the UN. As one Iraqi rightly said, "We do not need foreigners to tell us what to do."