Paranoid Reflections 
Slavoj Žižek
Everyone fears the possibility that the US attack on Iraq will have a catastrophic outcome – an ecological disaster of gigantic proportions, high American casualties, a terrorist attack in the West. If the war is over quickly (perhaps even by the time this is published) and if Saddam’s regime disintegrates, there will be a general sigh of relief, even among many critics of US policy. It is tempting to consider the hypothesis that the US is deliberately fomenting the fear of impending catastrophe, in order to reap the benefits of the universal relief when it fails to be realised.
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Slavoj Žižek is a dialectical-materialist philosopher and psychoanalyst. He also co-directs the International Centre for Humanities at Birkbeck College. The Parallax View appeared last year.
Other articles by this contributor:
Bring me my Philips Mental Jacket · Improve Your Performance!
‘You May!’ · the post-modern superego
Knee-Deep · Leftist Platitudes
Lenin Shot at Finland Station · Counterfactuality and the conservative historian
Freud Lives! · dreaming
Resistance Is Surrender · What to Do about Capitalism
The Two Totalitarianisms · Stalin applauded too
Nobody has to be vile · The Philanthropic Enemy
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