The Architecture of War critically investigates the relationship between art, architecture and archaeology and militarized visual culture, analyzed against the historical and political backdrop of imperial and neoliberal processes in the Middle East. Drawing from the fields of postcolonial theory, architecture, archaeology, visual and cultural studies, The Architecture of War sheds light on the United States’ 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. It specifically examines the United States’ military occupation of Iraqi ancient cities and heritage sites (archeological and architectural) which has resulted in their destruction. It further investigates the U.S. military bases established in relation to the archeological sites and architectural monuments as a performative spectacle of power. The paper examines the ideologically driven programmatic destruction of Iraq and the United States’ ongoing use of cultural annihilation as a means of conquest, erasure, and reconfiguration of societies’ collective memory, history, and identity. The Architecture of War considers the ways in which the U.S. military strategies of disfiguring the representational monuments of Iraq is part and parcel of the dismantling process of the Iraqi nation state, in order to remap, reimagine, and reconstruct space through a long-term agenda in the service of capital and empire. It situates these acts within representational practices of empire building and link them to a colonial legacy, U.S. hegemonic control (geo-political, socio-economic, and military) of the region as it relates to neo-liberal globalization. The paper demonstrates that the Second Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq is part and parcel of a programmatic petrocultural engineering project, which sought the violent demolition of cities, and specifically of heritage sites, institutional structures, and architectural monuments. It has resulted in the setting for the spectacle of destruction, collective trauma, and disfiguration of collective memory, which enables the crafting of popular consciousness towards neoliberal aspirations and globalization.