The U.S. military completed its withdrawal from Iraq after 12 years in the region fighting against ISIS. The Biden administration agreed to the withdrawal in 2024, and the Trump administration carried it out.
Troops left the last remaining bases in Erbil, in northern Iraq, on Wednesday. The exit also comes 23 years after US-led forces ousted Saddam Hussein – which, while widely celebrated, sparked the rise of Islamic State.
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“This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. “It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.”
Not the first withdrawal
This marks the second time U.S. troops have withdrawn from Iraq. They left in 2011, eight years after the invasion that led to Hussein’s capture. They returned in 2014 after ISIS took over parts of northern Iraq and Syria.
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The U.S. deployed about 5,000 troops to Iraq in 2014 at the Iraqi government’s request to help fight ISIS.
American forces defeated ISIS militarily in 2019 but maintained a presence there to prevent a resurgence. About 2,500 U.S. troops have remained in Iraq since then.
U.S. forces also withdrew from eastern Syria earlier this year.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said this is the beginning of “a new phase, one defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends,” according to CNN.
New concerns raised
The total withdrawal raises new concerns, especially in light of the U.S. current conflict with Iran. When the deal was made, the situation in Iraq was different, but when fighting between Israel and Iran-aligned groups in Gaza and Yemen, American troops in Iraq became targets of militias.
“The Iran-backed groups viewed the US presence [as] an extension of the occupation of Iraq,” Lahib Higel, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis Group, told CNN.
She added, “These groups believe that the US were in Iraq to monitor the activities of the Iran-allied militias.”
As’hab Al-Kahf, an Iranian-backed militia, congratulated Iraqis “on the humiliating withdrawal of the American occupier under the strikes of the Resistance’s drones and missiles,” CNN reports.
While many Iraqis are glad to see the U.S. withdrawal, experts have raised concerns that security forces there — who have been trained by the U.S. — aren’t ready to protect the region should Iran decide to increase its presence in the country. There are also still concerns over a potential ISIS resurgence.
“We expect the Iraqi Security Forces, including the Peshmerga and other security forces in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, to lead the continuing effort to secure Iraq and keep ISIS remnants suppressed,” the Defense Department said in its statement. “The Department of War will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners.”
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