As American troops pull back from Iraq, what has been the balance sheet of the nearly nine-year occupation for us power and hegemony—ideological, military, economic? What, not least, has it meant for the Iraqis? On the first count, Obama has been able to add the occupation to his ‘job-done’ tick list, in election year. ‘When I took office, I pledged to end this war responsibly’, he proclaimed at a December 2011 White House press conference. Today, ‘I’m proud to welcome Prime Minister Maliki, the elected leader of a sovereign, self-reliant and democratic Iraq. We’re here . . . to begin a new chapter in the history between our countries: a normal relationship between sovereign nations, an equal partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect. You will not stand alone’, he assured the dour-faced Maliki at his side.footnote¹ Militarily, Obama has stuck religiously to the script he inherited from Bush’s surge-and-retrench policy of 2007–08: a temporary troop increase and concerted diplomatic offensive, in order to establish an operational monopoly of violence for a client government and to win, or buy, Sunni support for it; followed by a pull-back to us bases and eventual redeployment to Afghanistan or elsewhere.

Mainstream press accounts have been virtually unanimous in depicting a greatly diminished American superpower. It has been argued that the us is ‘leaving the country’s vast economic spoils to nations that neither supported nor participated in the us-led invasion.’footnote² Yet the extent of the draw-down should not be exaggerated. December 2011 saw a reconfiguration of American forces in the region, not a retreat. Some 15,000 us troops are now stationed just across the Iraqi border in Kuwait, readying a ‘mobile response force’ equipped with heavy artillery, tanks and helicopters. In addition to naval and air bases in Bahrain and Qatar, two us aircraft carriers lurk offshore.footnote³ The us retains de facto control of Iraq’s airspace, augmenting regional air power with drones trawling Iraqi skies and extensive satellite-surveillance systems. Responsibility for the us security apparatus safeguarding the enormous Baghdad Embassy and strategically vital ‘consular installations’ will now fall to the cia and State Department; their staff currently includes over 7,500 government-contracted private-security operatives, in addition to the largely unmonitored security hirings by the oil majors.footnote⁴

The Maliki government is purchasing f-16 fighter planes—considered by defence experts as capable only against ‘aging threats from Syria or Iran’, without being ‘a serious threat to more advanced air forces in the region.’footnote⁵ The f-16 contract is not simply a matter of the White House exploiting its position to ensure the sales of American defence contractors, as it has done since Eisenhower first sought to ‘absorb’ Saudi oil revenues through us weapons deals in 1956.footnote⁶ It also serves to bind Iraq more tightly into the American system of dominance in the region. As Kenneth Pollack, National Security Council director for Persian Gulf Affairs in the Clinton Administration, explained to the Senate Armed Forces Committee last fall, ‘one of the most important lessons of the Arab Spring and Mubarak’s fall has been the tremendous utility American arms sales can have in the Middle East’:

The modern military history of the Arab states makes clear that Arab allies of the United States become completely dependent on the United States and lose the capacity to project power without American support (and therefore approval). Today, Jordan, Egypt and all of the gcc states coordinate all of their major, external military activities with the United States.footnote⁷

As a palimpsest for imperial modes of rule over Iraqi territory, the oft-drawn comparison with Britain between 1914 and 1958 remains apt—notwithstanding the vast disparities in the two world hegemons’ wealth, reach and military might. Britain launched its invasion of Mesopotamia in the opening months of the First World War, taking advantage of hostilities to seize the Shatt al-Arab waterway and secure its oil interests in Iran, principal fuel supply for the Royal Navy. In 1920, conquest was sanctioned by a 12-year League of Nations mandate, adding the patina of international legitimation to an ongoing occupation. British Indian troops, assorted tribal levies and the raf were used to put down Iraqi resistance. In 1921 London installed a monarch, ratified his position by referendum and staged a nominal transfer of powers; British advisors continued to instruct King Faisal’s ministers and the uk retained control over internal security, defence and foreign policy.footnote⁸ In 1930, two years before the British Mandate was due to end, the Ramsay MacDonald government signed a bi-lateral treaty with Britain’s hand-picked Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Said, granting the uk rights over Iraq’s foreign policy, ports, railways, airbases and, in time of war, military dispositions. Though its troops withdrew ‘over the horizon’ in 1932, under the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty Britain would retain indirect control for another 26 years, until the revolution of 1958 toppled the monarchy and saw Nuri cut down in Baghdad.

For its part, the Bush White House began targeting Iraq within days of the January 2001 inaugural. In May 2003, conquest was sanctioned by United Nations mandate, in the form of unsc Resolution 1483. The us–uk forces set about dividing, crushing and co-opting the resistance, while simultaneously constructing a client parliamentary regime. In June 2004 Washington installed a Transitional Government under Iyad Allawi, who had worked with the cia since the mid-90s, and staged a formal passage of powers. American advisors remained entrenched in the key ministries, and the us Ambassador—Negroponte, Khalilzad, Crocker—assumed the vice-regal role. A constitution that relied for its key articles on Paul Bremer and Peter Galbraith’s Transition Administrative Law was ratified by referendum in October 2005; protests about vote-rigging in the key province of Ninawa were dismissed, to allow Council of Representatives elections to proceed two months later. In 2008, as the end of its un mandate neared, Washington negotiated a bi-lateral treaty with its hand-picked Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki—Bush having vetoed Jaafari, the choice of Iraqi parliamentarians, in 2006—which sanctioned us basing rights up till December 2011. Though its forces have now withdrawn ‘over the horizon’, there is little to suggest that the us would, if driven to it, hesitate to follow the British precedent of 1941—London intervening again, nine years after its withdrawal, to overthrow a government unwelcome to it.

If Churchill had thought it vital in 1913 that Britain become ‘controller at the source’ of large oil reserves to fuel the Royal Navy, and military planners regarded control over Persian and Mesopotamian petroleum as ‘a first-class British war aim’, this was always vigorously denied in public. In 1920 Churchill declared the notion that Britain had incurred the risk and expense of a military campaign in order to ‘secure some advantage in regard to some oilfields’ as ‘too absurd for acceptance’.footnote⁹ In 1923 the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, reassured the Lausanne Conference: