During the First World War, Allied forces attracted the support of Arab populations across the Hijaz and Al-Sham to overthrow Ottoman leadership, ostensibly to undermine the German-allied Ottomans and seek self-determination for the Arab provinces. Western support for Arab independence soon shifted in pursuit of imperialist ambitions in the region, including the control of resource-rich territory and the collection of antiquities. Before and throughout this period, Western (particularly British) archaeological activity in the Ottoman Empire and acquisition of antiquities represented the cultural extension of European empire and the manifestation of power imbalances between the East and West. While several influential figures from Iraq, educated in Constantinople, would travel to the Hijaz to join the Arab Revolt, the rebellion did not have a substantial direct impact on the Iraqi provinces. Rather, members of the intelligentsia grappled with competing imperial models of cultural governance (from the Ottomans and the British) and al-Nahda, or Arab Renaissance, a cultural movement that inspired Arab nationalist discourse across the region and suggested a third path for the region’s political consolidation that aspired to self-determination outside either imperial purview. The Shia ulema of Najaf and Karbala played a crucial role in discourse around foreign influence and debates in the Iraqi provinces around sovereignty and self-rule, particularly as they looked east to the Constitutional Revolution occurring in neighbouring Persia. Further, the activities of Sheikh Mubarak of Kuwait, largely pro-British, ultimately helped secure Britain’s foothold in the Gulf, which would be leveraged in 1914 to launch its northward occupation of the Iraqi provinces. This chapter relies on material from the Qatar Digital Library and Middle East and North African Newspapers Collection to examine the ways in which imperial cultural influence (from the Ottomans and British) was negotiated in Iraq leading up to and during the period of the Arab Revolt, highlighting additional impacts on political discourse, including the trajectory of Persian nationalism and the question of Kuwaiti allegiance. This chapter explores the region’s transition from Ottoman to British rule and the enduring ideological impact of competing models of governance which leveraged material and intellectual culture in discourses surrounding political legitimacy.