BAGHDAD — U.S. forces are set to pull out from their last bases in Iraq by Wednesday, ending more than two decades of American military presence in a country where about 4,500 U.S. troops died.
The withdrawal was agreed in 2024 under President Joe Biden and has been carried out by the Trump administration even as the United States wages war against Iran, according to a report by Reuters.
Iraqi security experts say the departure could give Tehran and its powerful allies free rein in Iraq, while also allowing other U.S. enemies, including Islamic State, to stage a comeback.
“Iran stands to benefit strategically from the coalition’s departure because it removes a military presence that for years acted as a counterweight to Tehran’s influence in Iraq,” said Jasim al-Bahadli, an Iraqi security analyst specializing in studying armed Shi’ite groups aligned with Iran.
He predicted that pro-Iranian militia groups would not only portray the departure as a victory for their movement, but would also seek to translate that momentum “into greater influence 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 U.S. withdrawal as “a historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups and 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.
Separately, U.S. officials told Axios that President Trump is willing to give Iran sanctions relief and release frozen Iranian funds in return for concrete Iranian steps regarding its nuclear program, according to a report by Axios’s Barak Ravid. Trump denied the reports as “untrue” on social media Monday.