The United States is on the brink of ending one of the longest chapters of its military involvement in the wake of 9/11, with American troops set to leave Iraq by the end of September 30. Both Washington and Baghdad have recently agreed upon this date, marking the official end of the military mission of the US-led coalition in Iraq.
However, the importance of this withdrawal goes beyond the departure of American troops. Iraq itself has its own deadline coming on September 30 in the form of an attempt to bring armed militias into line with the state. This is quite symbolic. While the US is withdrawing its troops, which have been shaping the security landscape of Iraq for almost twenty years, the Iraqi government is now being tasked with proving its ability to prevent the country from sliding back into the old pattern of militia politics, foreign interventions and sectarian insecurity.
Speaking to AzerNEWS, Lebanon-based analyst Hazem Al-Tawil noted that the US withdrawal should not be interpreted as a simple reduction of Washington’s involvement in the Middle East:
“September 30 is being presented as the date on which the United States will finally leave Iraq. That description is technically correct, but strategically incomplete. The more important story is what Washington and Baghdad are trying to build after the American military presence disappears. For the United States, the withdrawal marks the end of a model that has become increasingly expensive and politically hazardous, that is keeping American personnel inside a country where they can be attacked by forces aligned with Iran, while simultaneously insisting that those same forces are not the legitimate representatives of the Iraqi state. For Iraq, however, the American departure creates a much more difficult problem. Baghdad is being asked to exercise sovereignty at precisely the moment when its ability to control all the armed actors operating on its territory is being tested. With that being said it is not simply an American withdrawal. It is a test of whether Iraq can function without the security architecture that Washington built around it after the defeat of ISIS. The original logic of the American presence has already disappeared. ISIS no longer holds the territory it once controlled, while Iraqi security forces have spent years receiving American training, intelligence and equipment. The coalition’s military mission has therefore become increasingly difficult to justify as a permanent arrangement.
The United States and Iraq had already agreed in 2024 to end the coalition’s military mission and transition toward a bilateral security relationship. Even when the US forces entered Iraq for the first time, the main focus was not around the fact that, they want to control the region. But even if that was clear enough, the difference now is that the transition is taking place in a radically more dangerous regional environment. Since the escalation of the US-Iran confrontation, Iraq has again become a battlefield by proxy. The Pentagon says Iran-aligned militias carried out more than 600 attacks against US citizens and facilities in Iraq between February and April alone. Washington has responded militarily, while Baghdad has increasingly found itself caught between the demands of its American partner and the armed factions that form part of, or operate alongside, Iraq’s own security system. The smaller the American contingent becomes, the less useful it is as a conventional military force. But the more vulnerable that contingent becomes to militia attacks, the greater the political and strategic cost of keeping it there. Washington has therefore reached a point where a limited troop presence can generate disproportionate risk’.
The expert, however, also believes that Washington is not giving up Iraq.
The most important mistake would be to interpret the withdrawal as the disappearance of American influence. It is better understood as a change in the instrument through which that influence is exercised. The future US-Iraq relationship is expected to rely much more heavily on defence cooperation, arms sales, training, intelligence and political engagement than on a permanent American combat footprint. Baghdad has already established a technical committee to define the relationship with Washington after the coalition mission ends. President Donald Trump has been unusually explicit about the distinction. During Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s visit to Washington in July, Trump said the United States did not believe American troops were still necessary, while al-Zaidi stressed that US forces would leave but American companies would remain. That sentence captures the broader transition rather well. The United States wants less military Iraq without necessarily wanting less American Iraq.
He suggests there is also a wider strategic calculation that needs to be considered.
‘American military resources are finite. The Middle East continues to demand enormous attention, while Washington is simultaneously trying to manage competition with China and its increasingly contested position in the Indo-Pacific. Recent US force movements have demonstrated how quickly Middle Eastern crises can consume assets that Washington would otherwise prefer to deploy elsewhere. So, the Iraq withdrawal therefore fits into a broader question facing American strategy: how much security can Washington continue to provide directly when its military commitments are multiplying?
The real problem is not ISIS. For Iraq, the more difficult question is what happens to the country’s armed factions once the Americans are gone.
For years, the presence of US forces provided Iran-aligned groups with their most powerful justification for remaining armed. They could present themselves as resistance forces confronting a foreign military presence. That argument becomes considerably weaker after September 30’.
Addressing our question, “If American troops have left, why should armed organizations functioning outside effective government control continue to maintain independent military capabilities?” the analyst believes that this issue is much more complex to resolve than the withdrawal of American soldiers.
‘Baghdad has consequently attempted to connect the withdrawal with a broader campaign to bring weapons under state authority. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has pledged to disarm non-state armed groups, although the most powerful factions have resisted the idea. Some political forces are now even arguing that the US withdrawal and militia disarmament should be treated as separate issues. A state does not become fully sovereign simply because foreign soldiers leave. Sovereignty also means controlling the weapons, borders and territory within the state. Iraq has struggled with this distinction for years. The Popular Mobilisation Forces are formally incorporated into the Iraqi security apparatus, but parts of the organisation retain their own political identities, chains of influence and relationships with Iran. The result is a peculiar structure in which some armed groups are simultaneously part of the state and powerful enough to challenge the state. That is far more difficult to resolve than the departure of American soldiers. Iran may gain, but the vacuum is not Tehran’s to fill. There is little doubt that Iran benefits from the reduction of America’s military footprint. But it would be premature to conclude that Iraq is simply falling into Iran’s hands. Baghdad has its own interests, and Iraqi nationalism has repeatedly proved more complicated than a simple pro-Iran versus pro-American division. The more likely outcome is a struggle over influence rather than outright control’.
Lebanese expert believes that the Trkiye dimension is also something to look out for.
‘Trkiye has another reason to watch September 30. The northern dimension is especially important. Trkiye has long treated northern Iraq as an extension of its security struggle with the PKK. Ankara has maintained military positions and conducted operations against PKK targets despite Baghdad’s objections. The American presence has complicated that equation. A smaller US footprint could give Trkiye greater freedom to manage its security interests in northern Iraq, particularly as the PKK’s own disarmament process begins to alter the regional landscape. The US Congressional Research Service has noted that the PKK’s decision to disarm could itself lead to changes in Trkiye’s posture. But this creates another dilemma for Baghdad. Iraq wants greater sovereignty over foreign military activity on its territory. Yet it also needs security relationships with neighbouring powers that it cannot easily replace with its own capabilities. The departure of the Americans may therefore expose a contradiction that has existed for years: Iraq wants foreign powers to respect its sovereignty, but its security environment still makes it dependent on them.
Long story short: Every scenario leaves Iraq with an uncomfortable choice. It can use the American withdrawal to reclaim political and security space for the state, or it can allow the space created by America’s departure to become another arena for competition among militias and foreign powers. The first would make September 30 a milestone in Iraqi sovereignty. The second would make it merely another date in the long history of Iraq’s dependence on other people’s wars or maybe that ‘security umbrella’ the US was providing will always be there – at least this time in a political sense’.