By Wednesday, US forces are expected to withdraw from their remaining bases in Iraq, a move hailed as a triumph by Iran and its allied groups, which now wield significant influence in a country where 4,500 Americans lost their lives over more than twenty years of conflict.
Iraqi security analysts warn that the pullout arranged in 2024 under President Joe Biden and implemented by Donald Trump’s administration even as it continues its conflict with Iran may grant Tehran and its influential partners broad freedom of action, while also opening the door for other US adversaries, including Islamic State, to reemerge.
Iran is poised to gain a strategic advantage from the coalition’s withdrawal, as it eliminates a military force that for years served as a counterbalance to Tehran’s influence in Iraq, said Jasim al-Bahadli, an Iraqi security analyst who focuses on armed Shi’ite factions aligned with Iran.
He predicted that pro-Iranian militias would not only frame the exit as a triumph for their cause, but also seek to convert that momentum into expanded sway over security and political decision-making.
Abu Mojtaba al-Yasiri, a commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, described the US withdrawal as "a historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups and honorable Iraqis, and a crushing defeat for the American project".
In 2003, U.S. forces invaded Iraq to overthrow Sunni Muslim ruler Saddam Hussein, subsequently occupying the country, establishing a Shi'ite-led government, and waging a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign before withdrawing in late 2011.
They came back in under three years to support Iraqi forces in a major conflict from 2014 to 2017, helping them defeat the Sunni extremist organization known as Islamic State.
Approximately twice as many Americans were killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom as in the concurrent war in Afghanistan, which concluded with a sudden U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
In recent years, Iraq has uniquely sustained strong political and military ties with both the United States and Iran, even as its territory has at times served as a proxy battleground between them.
In 2020, the United States killed senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a strike at Baghdad Airport. Iran-backed groups have repeatedly targeted U.S. bases, occasionally provoking retaliatory attacks.
In the current year's war against Iran, 7 of the 18 U.S. service members reported killed lost their lives in Iraq, the most recent being an Army sergeant who died in July during the controlled detonation of a drone at a base near Erbil.
Although most Iraqis support the eventual exit of US troops, those concerned about the power of Iran-backed factions fear the pullout is happening too soon.
“We believe Iraq is still not fully prepared to assume responsibility for security at this time,” Abdulrahman al-Zobaie, a Sunni tribal leader in Fallujah once a stronghold of anti-American insurgency told Reuters.
“All Iraqis seek full sovereignty, and no Iraqi would contest that. But I think that the US-led coalition’s departure in this manner, leaving a vacuum, is what all Iraqis fear.”