The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the central role of religion has played in the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, especially when examined through the prism of Orientalism’s nexus with war. Drawing on postcolonial theory and critical discourse analysis, the paper shows that religion has been at the core of the Orientalist discourses and practices that have been used to justify and mobilize for the 2003 intervention. Second, it proves that religion, both as a ‘sincere’ driver and propaganda tool, has been an important factor in the attainment of the political and popular consensus about the war within the United States and with ‘willing’ allies. And last, it reveals how the religion of the ‘Other’ was used to cast any resistance of Iraqis to the invasion as arising from exclusively religious/cultural motivations, in contradistinction to the secular/rational Americans who wage war for purely political ends.
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