Global Studies

This essay advances an original sociological perspective for understanding U.S. foreign policy, historically and in the present, as a product of economic, political, cultural, and social psychological factors, shaped by race and gender as well as class. It offers an interpretation of the real reasons for both the first U.S.-Iraq war in 1991 and the recent conflict in 2003, assessing the first in terms of a project of international hegemony through roll-back of the negative impact of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and arguing that the 2002-3 Gulf War followed the same lines in a more extreme direction: a project of imperial hegemony through unilateral pre-emptive war abroad and manipulation of public opinion coupled with a climate designed to demonize dissent at home. It closes with suggestions for what roles progressive sociologists might play in the global justice movement and Green Party in light of the analysis offered in the essay.