Leaving Iraq while bombing Iran

The United States officially completed its withdrawal from Iraq on Wednesday, more than two decades after the country was invaded to oust Saddam Hussein. The Pentagon and the Iraqi government celebrated the milestone, while Iran and its allies hailed the departure. The long-awaited withdrawal concluded after US forces evacuated their final bases in Erbil, northern Iraq.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell attributed the success to a 12-year campaign that eradicated ISIS from Iraq and the wider region, transitioning the nation from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort. An Iranian-backed militia, As’hab Al-Kahf, lauded the US exit, crediting Iranian drones and missiles for the "humiliating withdrawal of the American occupier."

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, presiding over the handover ceremony, framed the US withdrawal as the onset of a new era defined by Iraq's sovereignty, robust institutions, cohesive forces, and balanced partnerships with allies. The phased withdrawal, agreed upon in 2024 by the Iraqi government and the Biden administration, leaves the new Iraqi administration with the formidable task of weakening Iran's influence over Iraq, which has endured years of sectarianism, foreign interference, and conflict.

Lahib Higel, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, told CNN that Iran-backed groups perceive US presence as an extension of Iraq's occupation. At its peak, the US maintained 170,000 troops in Iraq before President Obama's troop withdrawal in 2011, with about 5,000 soldiers deployed in 2014 to combat ISIS.

Since December 2021, roughly 2,500 US troops have been stationed in Iraq to train Iraqi forces against ISIS. The US presence in Iraq lasted over two decades, with the last mission focusing on dismantling the Sunni extremist group that controlled parts of Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s. As Iran-aligned factions intensified tensions across the Middle East, US troops in Iraq frequently became targets of Tehran's proxy militias, and the situation escalated this year following President Trump's war with Iran, which claimed the life of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a revered figure among Iranian loyalist militias.