US troops complete Iraq exit, as Iran and its allies celebrate

By Mostafa Salem, Sarah Tamimi, CNN

(CNN) — The United States announced it had completed its withdrawal from Iraq on Wednesday, more than 20 years after invading the country to topple Saddam Hussein, in a move that was celebrated by the Iraqi government and the Pentagon – as well as Iran and its allies, who claim years of pressure forced the American departure.

The long-planned withdrawal was completed after US troops left their last remaining bases in Erbil, northern Iraq, and comes amid the ongoing war between the US and neighboring Iran.

“This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,” Pentagon spokesperson 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.”

One Iranian-supported militia, As’hab Al-Kahf, cheered the US exit, congratulating Iraqis “on the humiliating withdrawal of the American occupier under the strikes of the Resistance’s drones and missiles.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and described the US withdrawal as the beginning of a “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.”

In 2024, the Iraqi government and the Biden administration agreed to a phased withdrawal of US troops, a plan the Trump administration has honored. The pullout, however, leaves a new Iraqi government with the daunting task of loosening Iran’s grip on its neighbor, which has long been trapped in a cycle of sectarianism, foreign meddling and civil conflict.

“The Iran-backed groups viewed the US presence 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. “These groups believe that the US were in Iraq to monitor the activities of the Iran-allied militias,” she added.

At its height, the US had 170,000 troops in Iraq before the Obama administration withdrew the forces from the country in 2011. About 5,000 troops were deployed to Iraq in 2014 at the request of the Iraqi government, which sought US assistance in the fight against ISIS. Since December 2021, the US has had roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq in an advise and assist capacity, working to train Iraqi military to fight ISIS.

The American presence in Iraq spanned more than two decades and several missions. The last of them, a 12-year campaign against ISIS, sought to dismantle the Sunni extremist group that carved out territory across Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s. When war widened between Israel and Iran-aligned factions from Gaza to Yemen, US troops in Iraq became frequent targets of Tehran’s proxy militias.

Strikes on US bases and troops rose further this year after President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a figure Iranian loyalist militias revered as the head of the armed resistance.

The primary responsibility for addressing Iraq’s “remaining security challenges” including ISIS and Iran-aligned militias “now rests” with the Iraqi government, Parnell said in the statement.

‘Impossible task’

The US withdrawal comes as several regional governments launch efforts to disarm Iran’s powerful militias, who have grown powerful with political, financial and military influence within Arab countries.

For three years, Iran has been losing influence in key areas across the Middle East. Lebanon’s Hezbollah was severely weakened by an Israeli invasion into southern Lebanese villages, and the fall of Iran’s ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, has forced Iranian groups to concede strategic territory.

Iran is turning to Iraq to hold onto a network of allied politicians, militias and media outlets. Even as its position has eroded in other arenas, the US pullout has left Iran-aligned groups feeling victorious and newly empowered.

Still, Iraq’s new prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, has pledged “no weapon outside the umbrella of the law, and no force outside the state’s institutions.”

Experts, including Higel, are doubtful that the Iraqi government will be able to disarm the Iran-loyal groups even if war between Iran and the US ends.

“It’s quite an impossible task to quickly disarm these groups,” Higel said. “For as long as the regime stands in Tehran, it would be very difficult to imagine that the groups would lay down their arms.”

After first treating the US military withdrawal as a condition for laying down their arms, the groups have since piled on new demands and refused to disarm, putting them on a collision course with the Iraqi state.

“We believe the disarmament demand is American, Zionist, Western, and Gulf-backed, aimed at weakening Iraq,” a leading commander of a powerful Iranian militia in Iraq, Harakat al-Nujaba, told CNN. “There has to be a withdrawal of the occupation in all its forms and guises – American, Western, and Turkish – and the liberation of political, economic, military, and security decision-making.”

The commander requested anonymity to speak freely to CNN. Harakat al-Nujaba is a US-designated Foreign Terror Organization.

Iran’s proxies have proven useful in adding pressure on Washington’s allies in the region. This month, Iraqi groups loyal to Iran fired drones on a vital Saudi oil pipeline, disrupting global crude supply and leaving oil prices soaring.

“The issue of surrendering weapons is a delusion harbored by the weak, the humiliated, and the dollar’s slaves,” the Iranian proxy Ashab Al-Kahf said in a statement at the time. “We will continue participating in the resistance axis as ordered by the (Islamic Republic of Iran’s) religious authority.”

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