This paper considers the shift in gender relations and identities after the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq and asks what happens to gender identities and relations when women’s empowerment is apparently an objective of war/invasion (as claimed by the US administration)? In this way, the paper demonstrates how the construction of gender should not only be considered in relation to national and state processes (Yuval-Davis 1997) but also with regard to transnational processes—in this case, that of the US pursuit of its strategic security objectives. Based on interviews with US officials, NGO workers and Iraqi women activists, undertaken over a period of 3 years, the paper highlights the gap between US administration measures to promote women’s empowerment, on the one hand, and the deteriorating reality for women on the ground. Whilst growing conservatism towards gender relations can be linked to trends apparent during the sanctions period (Al-Jawaheri 2008), this paper examines how US measures after 2003 have enabled the consolidation of these trends. This includes the empowerment of Iraqi political leaders with sectarian agendas and the subsequent instrumentalization of women’s rights within the framework of a new identity politics, and the undermining of national state institutions, which enabled a violent competition for power between various actors in which women’s bodies became part of the battlefield. In effect, US rhetoric of ‘women’s empowerment’, even when sincerely articulated by mid-level US State Department officials, is undermined by US pursuit of strategic objectives in Iraq (namely, ‘stabilizing’ Iraq). US actions have contributed to the construction of more restricted gender identities as a result of their deployment both as a tool of resistance of US occupation and as a tool of US allies to establish/maintain their authority--both with negative impacts upon women’s rights and position within society.