Iran’s Guards hail US withdrawal from Iraq as ‘historic victory’

Iran's Revolutionary Guards celebrated the US withdrawal from Iraq on Thursday, hailing it as a "historic victory" and calling for further American troop evacuations from the Middle East. The Guards praised the Iraqi people, the Islamic Resistance, and global revolutionary fighters for their role in this triumph. The statement from the Guards, released through their official media, urged the US to relinquish security responsibility to local nations.

While IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, the coalition chose to remain to combat its remnants. The Guards argued that two decades of American occupation resulted in insecurity, terrorism, and instability rather than security. Baghdad and Washington had agreed in 2024 to wind down the coalition mission, with US troops gradually withdrawing from bases across Iraq, retaining a presence only in the autonomous Kurdistan region.

The Iraqi government perceived the withdrawal as eliminating the pretext for militant factions backed by Iran to keep their weapons. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced June 30 as a new deadline for armed factions to surrender their weapons to the state.