US forces exiting Iraq after 2 decades, leaving opening for Iran

U.S. forces are set to depart from their last bases in Iraq by Wednesday, a move celebrated as a victory by Iran and its allies, who now have deep influence in the country where 4,500 Americans died during more than two decades of war .

Iraqi security experts say the withdrawal — agreed to in 2024 under U.S. President Joe Biden and carried out by Donald Trump’s administration even as it wages war against Iran — could give Tehran and its allies free rein, while also allowing other U.S. enemies , including the 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 specialising in studying armed Shi’ite groups aligned with Iran.

He predicted that the pro-Iranian militia groups would not only portray the departure as a victory for their movement, but 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 Sept. 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.”

While the eventual departure of U.S. forces is broadly popular among Iraqis, those who worry about the strength of the Iran-backed groups fear the withdrawal is premature.

“We believe Iraq is still not fully ready to take over the security file at this time,” Abdulrahman al-Zobaie, a Sunni tribal leader in Fallujah, once a bastion of anti-American resistance, told Reuters.

“All Iraqis aspire to full sovereignty, and no Iraqi would dispute that. But I believe that the [U.S.-led coalition] leaving in this way and creating a vacuum is what all Iraqis fear.”

American forces invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Sunni Muslim dictator Saddam Hussein, and went on to occupy the country, install a Shi’ite-led government and fight a years-long counterinsurgency before withdrawing at the end of 2011.

A U.S. Marine seen during fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, Nov. 12, 2004. (Anja Niedringhaus/AP)

They returned less than three years later to help Iraqi forces defeat the Sunni militant group the Islamic State in a major war from 2014 to 2017.

Around twice as many Americans died in “Operation Iraqi Freedom” as in the parallel war in Afghanistan, which ended with an abrupt U.S. withdrawal in 2021.

In recent years, Iraq has been the only country to maintain close political and military alliances with both the United States and Iran, which sometimes used Iraqi territory as a proxy battlefield.

The United States killed a top Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, with a strike on the Baghdad airport in 2020. Iran’s allies repeatedly fired on U.S. bases, sometimes drawing reprisals.

In this year’s war against Iran, seven of the U.S. service members listed as killed were in Iraq, the last an Army sergeant who died during the controlled detonation of a drone at a base near Erbil in July.

Iran, which says its ultimate aim is to force American forces to leave the entire Middle East, casts the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as a victory for its “axis of resistance” of allied armed groups across the region.

“Lasting security will prevail in Iraq” once the Americans leave the country and the region, the deputy chairman of the National Security Commission of Iran’s Parliament, Amir Hayat Moqaddam, said on Monday.

Iran “welcomes the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and will undoubtedly support it,” he told Iran’s parliamentary news service. “Resistance groups are currently taking action, sometimes targeting and confronting American troops.”

Washington has accused Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq of playing a role in the wider Middle East conflict by launching attacks on neighboring countries at the direction of Tehran, most recently hitting a major Saudi oil pipeline this month. The Baghdad government says it is trying to curb their influence.

Some Iraqi security officials, both in the federal government and the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, say the U.S. pullout also risks giving new life to Islamic State fighters, who, despite the defeat of their self-proclaimed caliphate nearly a decade ago, retain a sleeper cell network.

At their height, the fighters occupied a third of Iraq and killed thousands of people, including hundreds they videotaped themselves gunning down inside a former U.S. military base.

A lack of U.S. intelligence, logistical support and drones will give the Islamic State a chance to regroup, said Kurdish commander Sirwan Barzani.

“For more than two weeks, we have noticed movement by [Islamic State] sleeper cells, after it was announced in the general media that there will be an official withdrawal of the international coalition from Iraq by the end of September,” he said. “This has boosted, in my opinion, the morale” of the fighters.

Iraqi security forces said a suspected Islamic State cell was preparing suicide attacks to coincide with the pullout. The plot highlighted concerns that the militant group remains capable of exploiting security gaps despite years of military setbacks, said four Iraqi security and army officials.

The Islamic State “is seeking to send a message that the group is still powerful and capable of launching bloody attacks,” said Col. Khalid al-Bayati, a senior security official in the strategic oil town of Kirkuk.

美军将于周三撤离其在伊拉克的最后一个基地，此举被伊朗及其盟友视为胜利。伊朗及其盟友目前在伊拉克拥有深远的影响力，而伊拉克在长达二十多年的战争中已有 4500 名美国人丧生。

伊拉克安全专家表示，此次撤军——由美国总统乔·拜登在2024年达成协议，并由唐纳德·特朗普政府在对伊朗发动战争的同时执行——可能会让德黑兰及其盟友为所欲为，同时也可能让包括伊斯兰国在内的其他美国敌人卷土重来。

“伊朗将从联军的撤离中获得战略利益，因为这消除了多年来制衡德黑兰在伊拉克影响力的军事存在，”专门研究与伊朗结盟的什叶派武装组织的伊拉克安全分析师贾西姆·巴哈德利说。

他预测，亲伊朗民兵组织不仅会将此次撤离描绘成他们运动的胜利，而且还会“寻求将这种势头转化为对安全和政治决策的更大影响力”。

伊拉克伊斯兰抵抗组织（一个由伊朗支持的武装派别组成的伞式组织）的一名指挥官阿布·穆杰塔巴·亚西里将美国的撤军描述为“伊拉克伊斯兰抵抗组织和正直的伊拉克人的历史性胜利，以及美国计划的惨痛失败”。

“9月30日，我们将庆祝伊拉克历史上黑暗篇章的翻篇，以及占领者企图将其意志强加于我国的失败，”他告诉路透社。“伊拉克已经证明，其主权不能靠外国势力维护，而只能靠人民的抵抗和意志来捍卫。”

虽然美军最终撤离在伊拉克民众中广受欢迎，但那些担心伊朗支持的武装力量的人则认为撤军为时尚早。

“我们认为伊拉克目前还没有完全准备好接管安全事务，”费卢杰逊尼派部落首领阿卜杜勒拉赫曼·祖拜伊告诉路透社。费卢杰曾是反美抵抗的堡垒。

“所有伊拉克人都渴望完全主权，这一点没有伊拉克人会否认。但我认为，（美国领导的联军）以这种方式撤离，造成权力真空，正是所有伊拉克人所担心的。”

2003 年，美军入侵伊拉克，推翻逊尼派穆斯林独裁者萨达姆·侯赛因政权，随后占领伊拉克，扶植什叶派领导的政府，并进行了长达数年的反叛乱战争，最终于 2011 年底撤军。

2004年11月12日，一名美国海军陆战队员在伊拉克费卢杰的战斗中。（安雅·尼德林豪斯/美联社）

不到三年后，他们再次回到伊拉克，帮助伊拉克军队在 2014 年至 2017 年的大战中击败了逊尼派武装组织“伊斯兰国”。

在“伊拉克自由行动”中丧生的美国人数量大约是同期阿富汗战争中丧生的美国人数量的两倍，而阿富汗战争最终以美国在 2021 年突然撤军而告终。

近年来，伊拉克是唯一一个与美国和伊朗都保持密切政治和军事联盟的国家，而伊朗有时甚至将伊拉克领土用作代理战场。

2020年，美国空袭巴格达机场，炸死了伊朗高级指挥官卡西姆·苏莱曼尼。伊朗的盟友多次向美国基地开火，有时会遭到报复。

在今年对伊朗的战争中，被列为阵亡的美国军人中有七名在伊拉克，最后一名阵亡的是一名陆军中士，他在7月份埃尔比勒附近一个基地的无人机受控引爆中丧生。

伊朗表示，其最终目标是迫使美军撤出整个中东地区，并将美国从伊拉克撤军视为其在该地区由武装团体组成的“抵抗轴心”的胜利。

伊朗议会国家安全委员会副主席阿米尔·哈亚特·穆卡达姆周一表示，一旦美国人离开伊拉克和该地区，“伊拉克将迎来持久安全”。

他对伊朗议会新闻社表示：“伊朗欢迎美军撤出伊拉克，并将毫无疑问地支持这一行动。抵抗组织目前正在采取行动，有时甚至以美军为目标并与之对抗。”

华盛顿指责伊朗支持的伊拉克民兵组织在更广泛的中东冲突中扮演重要角色，他们奉德黑兰之命对邻国发动袭击，最近一次是在本月袭击了沙特阿拉伯的一条主要输油管道。巴格达政府表示，正在努力遏制这些民兵组织的影响力。

伊拉克联邦政府和半自治的北部库尔德地区的一些安全官员表示，美国的撤军也可能使伊斯兰国武装分子死灰复燃。尽管伊斯兰国自封的哈里发国在近十年前就被击败，但他们仍然保留着一个沉睡的小组网络。

在鼎盛时期，这些武装分子占领了伊拉克三分之一的领土，杀害了数千人，其中包括数百名被他们拍摄下来的在美军前军事基地内枪杀的人。

库尔德指挥官西尔万·巴尔扎尼表示，由于缺乏美国的情报、后勤支持和无人机，伊斯兰国将有机会重整旗鼓。

他说：“两周多以来，我们注意到[伊斯兰国]潜伏小组的活动有所增加，此前主流媒体宣布国际联军将于9月底正式撤出伊拉克。我认为这极大地鼓舞了武装分子的士气。”

伊拉克安全部队称，一个疑似“伊斯兰国”的小组正在策划自杀式袭击，目标是在美军撤离期间发动袭击。四名伊拉克安全和军方官员表示，这一阴谋凸显了人们的担忧，即尽管多年来军事上屡遭挫败，该极端组织仍然有能力利用安全漏洞。

战略石油重镇基尔库克的高级安全官员哈立德·巴亚提上校表示，伊斯兰国“试图传达一个信息，即该组织仍然强大，有能力发动血腥袭击”。