In contexts in which gender is instrumentalized by those actors who are implicated in war and occupation and where the international promotion of gender mainstreaming may intensify rather than ameliorate gender inequalities, what role can feminist/women’s solidarity movements play and what sort of transnational feminist politics should be constructed in contexts of post/conflict in order to support women’s empowerment and peace building? My paper addresses these questions and discusses underlying theoretical issues and political dilemmas which have emerged in relation to my own empirical research in Iraq and amongst the Iraqi diaspora in Jordan, the US and the UK as well as the empirical research of colleagues who have focused on transnational feminism in the contexts of either Iraq or Palestine. The involvement of diasporas in transnational networks with regard to countries in conflict complicates the picture. On the one hand, diaspora activists may provide important bridges between activists in the North and those in the South. They are able to mobilise necessary resources to send back to their countries of origin, in order to contribute to the rebuilding of their countries. On the other hand, the desire of diaspora activists to participate in the nation from outside, through involvement in international political advocacy, as well as social welfare and development projects within their countries of origin may be perceived as an attempt to capitalise on their diasporic positions to create new hierarchies of power within their countries of origin. This is often perceived to be at the expense of those who “stayed behind” and who may have suffered persecution and deprivation. Moreover, women from the diaspora are often even more vulnerable to feelings of resentment or active discrediting on the part of local actors. This trend has been particularly evident in the Iraqi context where the diaspora has played a disproportionate role in the new Iraqi leadership supported by the US and US-based Iraqi women have benefited from US funding to establish NGOs within Iraq. Meanwhile, the politics of diaspora mobilisation, often focused on the rebuilding of the nation, may be diametrically opposed to transnational feminist politics, which seeks to highlight the ways in which national and state processes involve the construction of hierarchies of power and oppressions. This is obvious in the Iraqi Kurdish but also Palestinian situation where nationalist politics play an important role amongst women’s rights activists.