Ruminating on imperialism

Ruminating on imperialism 
 
 First of all, one might began to ask what Yoshie and
 Carrol intend by imperialism?  I assume it is Lenin's
 summation, borrowed largely from Bukharin, Hilferding,
 and Hobson ,and not some of the alternative theories
 as proposed by Baran, Emmanuel, Amin, etc.  It was
 summarized by Lenin in the following list:

 1) the concentration of production and capital has
    developed to such a high stage that it has created
    monopolies which play a decisive role in economic
    life;
 2) the mergiing of bank capital with industrial
    capital, and the creation, on the basis of this
    'finance capital' of a financial oligarchy;
 3) the export of capital as distinguished from the
    export of commodities aquires exceptional importance.
 4) the formation of international monopolist
    capitalist combines which share the world among
    themselves; and
 5) the territorial divison of the whole world among
    the biggest capitalist powers is completed.

 Now Lenin along with Bukarin saw that these blocks of
 capital were organized along national lines, as indeed
 they were and that this division of capital along
 national lines was an important impetus of war. I
 agree.

 However, what of the TENDANCY of capital to organize
 itself beyond national borders into global blocks of
 capital?  I am not saying that capital is exclusively
 organized in such a way, but that there is a growing
 tendancy in that direction.

 So, the questions I have been trying to get answers to
 are (1) how is the Iraqi war viewed from the
 perspective of global capital? (2) as for these
 national blocs of capital interested in Iraq, who are
 they, what are their particular interests and what is
 the relationship to global capital? (3)  Are Bush on
 the one-hand and, say, France/Germany on the other
 representing two different capital INTERESTS or two
 different political APPROACHES?  (4) Can the political
 players Chirac, Schroder, Bush, etc be neatly
 identified with blocs of capital, how much do purely
 political concerns (their voting base, etc) affect
 their position, how do differing ideologies within the
 capitalist class affect the position?

 So, I dont think that the situation is as simple as
 saying imperialism, Empire, blah blah.  I admit that I
 am seeking answers  to the above questions and am
 grateful to be informed by Professor Bina and others
 on this list.

 As concerns Hardt's concerns about anti-americanism vs
 pro-europeanism it seems to me that he is simply
 stating that it would be wrong for the anti-war
 movement to have illusions about the "goodness"
 of Europe as opposed to the malevolence of
 America...in other words, that they should not back
 either.  That the anti-war movement would do well not
 to back or have any illusions about these "bourgeois
 states" should not cause such a stir for our
 enthusiasts of the "Third Internationale".