Iraqi officials said this week, some publicly and some privately, that they were finalizing efforts to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq following the collapse of the Islamic State's “caliphate.”
The plan calls for almost all U.S. military personnel to withdraw from Saudi Arabia by 2025, with some remaining in the northern autonomous region controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for an additional year. Saudi Defense Minister Thavit Al-Abbasi reportedly announced the plan this week in an interview with the Saudi news agency Al Arabiya. The Washington Post Citation An unnamed “Iraqi military official” described the plan on Thursday, the same one that Baghdad and Washington have agreed to in principle but have not yet made public.
The reports emerged as Iranian President Massoud Pezechkian made his first international visit since taking office this week. He left Baghdad on Wednesday and visited the Kurdish regional government's capital, Erbil, and the city of Basra. Pezechkian is due to conclude his Iraq tour with a visit to Basra on Friday.
of The Washington Post The Iraqi government reported on Thursday, citing Defense Minister Abassi and unnamed sources, that Washington and Baghdad were close to finalizing plans for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops.
“Defence Minister Thavit Al-Abbasi said the two countries had reached an agreement.” post Claimed“It would transition Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led military mission established a decade ago to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, into a Sustainable Security Partnership and would result in a two-phase withdrawal of the roughly 2,500 U.S. troops currently in Iraq.”
The Post noted that while the Pentagon has yet to confirm or deny reports of a withdrawal, “Washington and Baghdad have already agreed in principle to end the U.S. counter-ISIS mission in Iraq.”
Saudi Arabian news network Al Arabiya Reported On September 8, Iraq and the administration of President Joe Biden post, The report argued that a major obstacle to concluding a full agreement is that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has resisted a full troop withdrawal in two years, claiming that there is “not enough time.” Secretary Austin has already presided over one of the most disastrous US troop withdrawals in history, the collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021, and is likely seeking to minimize the chance of a repeat.
Nonetheless, “we rejected his proposal for an (extra) third year,” Abassi was quoted as saying.
A week ago, Reuters Citation Multiple anonymous sources, including US and Iraqi officials, said a withdrawal agreement would be made public sometime in September. Iraqi officials reportedly insisted the withdrawal was a “transition” of Iraqi-US security cooperation, not an end.
The US military is currentlyOperation Inherent ResolveThe global war against Islamic State, which at its height established a “caliphate” with its capital in Raqqa, Syria, and consolidated its control over Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, where an estimated 2,500 U.S. troops are currently stationed. Stationed As part of the operation, 900 troops were deployed to Iraq and a further 900 to Syria.
Iraq's cooperation with the US has seriously damaged its relations with neighboring Iran, America's arch enemy, which regularly funds terrorists who attack US troops. Iran has dramatically increased its influence over the Iraqi government over the past five years as a result of its war against the Islamic State. Tehran has strengthened the influence of the mostly Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), which participated in the war against the Islamic State, although some of them openly espoused extremist Islamic beliefs and engaged in terrorist acts. They opposed the Sunni jihadist group ISIS and sometimes fought on the same side as US troops and Kurdish forces, earning them a certain amount of praise from the Pentagon.
However, following the collapse of the “caliphate,” Iran repurposed many PMF units, formally recognized as arms of the Iraqi military, to threaten and attack American interests in the country. Some of these groups are now believed to form part of a vague coalition known as the “Islamic Resistance of Iraq,” which is attacking Americans in the aftermath of an unprecedented massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, in which the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist group killed 1,200 people.
The new “moderate” Iranian president, Pezechkian, Arrived President Trump arrived in Iraq on his first international trip on Wednesday, meeting with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani and reportedly signing 14 agreements with Baghdad.
“We discussed the geopolitical situation of our two countries, which are a connecting point between Europe and Asia,” Pezeshkian said. saidAccording to Iran's Tasnim News Agency.
Tasnim noted that Pezeshkian reportedly stressed the importance of a “security agreement between the two countries to combat terrorism and enemies targeting regional security and stability,” which would likely include the United States, which Iran's “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has routinely referred to as an “enemy” country.
“If we come together, we can take great steps forward. This visit is a great opportunity to share our views and take the next steps within the framework of the signed agreements and understandings,” Pezeshkian said. Citation As they say in Baghdad.
Pezeskian too Traveled He visited the Kurdistan Regional Government and met with President Nechirvan Barzani on Thursday.
“Strengthening cooperation is essential to lay the security foundations necessary for strengthening economic and commercial ties and exchanges, especially in border areas,” Pezechkian said during his meeting with Barzani. Iran's state-run Press TV propaganda outlet quoted the president as stressing that “Iran will never allow any side to use it as a threat against the Islamic Republic,” likely a reference to the United States.
US troops and Kurdish Peshmerga forces worked closely together in the fight against the Islamic State, but relations between Washington and Erbil cooled after the collapse of the “caliphate” in 2017. That year, the Kurdistan Regional Government held a referendum on whether to declare independence, but the administration of former President Donald Trump opposed it. Though the referendum was won, the lack of US support led to PMF attacks on Kurds and efforts to expand Iranian influence in the Kurdistan Regional Government.
