Illustrative image. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army)
The United States is completing its withdrawal from Iraq after more than two decades of military operations, leaving Iran and its allies with a significantly stronger position inside a country where Tehran has spent years building political and military influence.
U.S. troops are due to leave their remaining bases by September 30, ending a military presence that began with the 2003 invasion and was re-established in 2014 to help defeat Islamic State.
Reuters reported on September 29 that the departure is being celebrated by Iran and its allies in Iraq as a victory, even as Washington remains at war with Tehran.
Iranian officials have made clear how Tehran views the withdrawal. Amir Hayat Moqaddam, deputy chairman of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Commission, said Monday that “lasting security will prevail in Iraq” once U.S. forces leave Iraq and the region.
Iran “welcomes the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and will undoubtedly support it,” Moqaddam said, adding that Iran-aligned “resistance groups are currently taking action, sometimes targeting and confronting American troops.”
The reaction from Iraq’s Iran-backed armed factions was even more explicit. Abu Mojtaba al-Yasiri, a commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-aligned armed factions, called the departure “a historic victory for honorable Iraqis, and a crushing defeat for the American project.”
“On September 30, we will celebrate the turning of a black page in Iraq’s history and the failure of the occupation to impose its will on our country,” he told Reuters. “Iraq has proven that its sovereignty cannot be secured by foreign forces, but by the resistance and the will of its people.”
The withdrawal comes as Baghdad is making unprecedented efforts to bring those same armed factions under state control.
Five Iran-aligned factions rejected a September 30 deadline to surrender their weapons, dissolve their organizations and join state security forces, according to a September 9 Reuters report. Kataib Hezbollah, one of the most powerful factions, demanded guarantees that U.S. forces would never return and an end to American influence over Iraq’s political and economic decisions.
The situation has become even less clear in recent weeks. On September 19, Qasim al-Araji, a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, said there was “no specific deadline” for completing the process of bringing weapons under state control and described reports of a fixed deadline as “completely incorrect.”
The withdrawal will remove U.S. intelligence, logistical support and drone capabilities that Iraqi and Kurdish forces have relied on against ISIS. Iraqi security officials told Reuters that the terrorist group has already been moving sleeper cells, while security forces said they had disrupted a suspected plot to carry out suicide attacks around the U.S. withdrawal.
For Iran, the change is especially significant because Iraq has been one of the most important parts of Tehran’s regional network.
Iran-backed armed factions have built extensive armed, political and economic influence inside Iraq, while American troops have remained the main foreign military force capable of directly challenging that influence. The U.S. is now leaving that contest.
The withdrawal does not give Iran control of Iraq, but it removes a major American military counterweight at a moment when Baghdad has yet to bring the country’s most powerful Iran-aligned armed factions fully under state authority. All in all, it is a clear victory to Iran and its allies.
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