Iraq remains a country of unbearable suffering, the sort that only soldiers and administrators acting onbehalf of states and governments are capable of inflicting on their fellow humans. It is the first countrywhere we can begin to study the impact of a 21st-century colonisation. This takes place in an internationalcontext of globalisation and neo-liberal hegemony. If the economy at home is determined by the primacy ofconsumption, speculation as the main hub of economic activity and no inviolate domains of public provision,only a crazed utopian could imagine that a colonised Iraq would be any different.