Provides a comprehensive overview of the US-Iraqi relationship since 1979 and places the 2003 American invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq in that wider historical context.

The United States and Iraq since 1979 Hegemony, Oil and War Steven Hurst The current Iraq War is the end point of a twenty-year relationship that began with the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, included an earlier US-Iraq war in 1991 and a subsequent 10 year effort to contain and disarm Iraq through sanctions and weapons inspections. Over this period the US relationship with Iraq has gone from an initial quasi-alliance in the early 1980s to the overthrow of the regime in 2003. Placing the current war in the context of this history allows Steven Hurst to present a better explanation than accounts which focus solely on the US administration responsible for the war. The book adds to explanations of US-Iraqi relations over the past twenty-five years, using a theoretical framework that places the actions of the various US administrations in a wider context. This serves to emphasise the role of the US in managing the world capitalist system, the importance of Persian Gulf oil to that process, and long-term change in the US socio-economic system. Key Features *Provides a comprehensive analysis of US-Iraqi relations from 1979 to the present *Demonstrates that the second Iraq War is a result of a longer historical process and not just the product of 9/11 and the War on Terror *Deepens understanding of the underlying factors of US policy towards the Persian Gulf, and its oil *Uses World Systems Theory to analyse US foreign policy Steven Hurst is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the Manchester Metropolitan University. He is author of The Carter Administration and Vietnam (1996), The Foreign Policy of the Bush Administration (1999) and Cold War US Foreign Policy (2005).