When Munir started out as an oil contractor in Basra in 2007, Iraq was under occupation and suffering a brutal insurgency. Even that, he laments, was better than what he has to deal with now. “Back then if we had a problem, we went to the Americans to fix it,” he says. “No one dared cause trouble.” Munir is one of dozens of frustrated businessmen in the southern city who are waiting to be paid back by a government dealing with a crippling debt crisis. To make matters worse, reports of robberies, kidnappings and assault have risen as the money used to pacify local militias and tribes dries up. “How can a foreign investor protect himself, when I, a local, can’t protect myself?” says Munir, who asked to change his name for safety reasons. Since the 2003 occupation led by the US and the UK, Iraq’s political elite has maintained a fragile social order through a patronage network that doled out company contracts, state jobs to 7m people and services such as fuel and food subsidies.