Iraq begins high-stakes security balancing act as US troops withdraw

Iraq is set to hold four “Sovereignty Days”, a national holiday marking the complete withdrawal of US troops from the country and underscoring the deep symbolism of the exit after more than two decades of foreign intervention.

Wednesday’s withdrawal deadline affirmed the exodus of a few hundred remaining US soldiers in the country, who have served in advisory roles in a coalition operation against ISIL (ISIS) first launched in 2015.

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While the exit plan predates Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, it fits into his wider vision of reasserting Iraqi state authority. That encompasses accelerating efforts to disarm all militias in the country by June 2027, including several powerful pro-Iran groups who have launched attacks throughout the region amid the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last week, al-Zaidi said his government was “striving to ensure that the state is the ultimate decision-maker in matters of peace and war, and that weapons and tools of power remain in the hands of its constitutional institutions”.

He added, “With the end of the international coalition’s mission in Iraq, we are moving our relationship with our strategic partners to a new phase, moving from military cooperation to economic and development cooperation in service of our common interests.”

Indeed, the US withdrawal appears to be part of a strategy by al-Zaidi to “politically weaken” influential militias, including those linked to Iran, according to Douglas Silliman, the former US ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait.

Those militias have long pointed to the presence of the US military, and other foreign actors like Turkiye, as a pillar justification for maintaining their own weapons stores and chains of command. Some have already indicated they will refuse to hand over their arms.

“The prime minister is clearly trying to build a political case to Iraqis that these forces that are more beholden to Iran, and have used weapons without government authorisation, no longer have a political reason to have those weapons,” said Silliman, who serves as president of the Arab Gulf States Institute.

It is a high-stakes gambit, leaving room for Iran to assert greater influence in the country and opening the door to a potentially catastrophic domestic standoff down the line.

It also creates the potential for increased pressure from the US if Iraq-based groups continue to target Washington’s assets.

“It’s going to be a very difficult series of decisions,” Silliman said. “Both for the militias and for Prime Minister al-Zaidi and his defence team.”

Iraq navigates new security reality

How the Iraqi government navigates the end of the US-led coalition’s deployment, dubbed “Operation Inherent Resolve”, will have wide-ranging implications for the future security of Iraq.

The country has remained relatively stable in recent years following the 2017 territorial defeat of ISIL, despite being enveloped by conflict and insecurity on its borders. That stability has generally persisted since the US began its troop withdrawal in 2020 under US President Donald Trump, with the remaining military personnel consolidating at an airbase in Erbil, in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, at the end of 2025.

To be sure, al-Zaidi has already sought to build in some safeguards amid the wider effort to disarm and integrate militias into Iraqi government forces, pushing back on an initial September 30, 2026 deadline to June 2027 to bring all weapons under state control.

Al-Zaidi told The New York Times earlier this month that both the US and Iran-aligned militias have given assurances that they will refrain from any attacks for 90 days following the US withdrawal, in an effort to prevent the situation from devolving in the short term.

Still, Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House, said militias aligned with Iran’s “axis of resistance” in the region ultimately remain “in full-on war mode, working with the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] in the region. And so they will continue to target US and US interests.”

While al-Zaidi has promised continued integration and cooperation with the US and other Western allies, there is likely disquiet behind the rhetoric, Mansour assessed, with some seeing the US’s erstwhile presence in the country as having served as a bulwark against a wider policy pivot.

“The anxiety from the Iraqi government now is that the US might not need Iraq any more, or might, in the worst case, view Iraq as a pariah state, too close to Iran, and therefore another target,” he said.

The targeting could eventually come in the form of sanctions or in an escalation of US and Israeli strikes on Iraqi territory, Mansour said.

Changing landscape

Mohammad Salih, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on Iraq, also agreed that enthusiasm for the US troop withdrawal was likely more subdued within some segments of the Iraqi government than public statements – and national holidays – suggest.

Salih assessed an underlying wariness to change the security status quo at a time of regional upheaval, pointing to the continued threat from ISIL sleeper cells, shifting cross-border dynamics in a post-Assad Syria, as well as the US-Israel war with Iran.

“The official rhetoric tries to signal that Iraq is more or less fine, that it can take care of itself, and that it seeks stronger commercial and diplomatic ties with the US – that there is no need for the US military presence,” he said.

“But in reality, there is a great deal of concern that Iraq could be the next theatre of some major regional development,” he told Al Jazeera.

The operational implications of the end to the US-led anti-ISIL mission remain difficult to assess.

In the wake of the withdrawal, the two countries appear to be reverting to a 2008 Strategic Framework and Security Agreement, signed under the administration of US President George W Bush, Salih said. The deal pledges continued, if non-binding, US security support for Iraq.

Neither the Iraqi government nor the Pentagon have given a clear picture of what shape security cooperation could take going forward, particularly when it comes to the intelligence and logistical support that buoyed ISIL’s territorial defeat.

However, a regional source with knowledge of the situation told Al Jazeera the relationship is “likely to become less centred on a visible military footprint and more focused on intelligence, training, technical support, capacity-building and institutional cooperation”.

The source called the change a “test of whether a relationship built for a period of military intervention can evolve into a more conventional partnership between sovereign states”.

Several experts noted that Iraqi security forces – including its military, police, counterterrorism forces, and militias who fought as part of the Popular Mobilisation Forces – have taken major strides in responding to ISIL. That may potentially minimise any operational fallout from the physical exit of US personnel.

“There are real capabilities and real experience in the Iraqi security forces. People I talk to in the military are quite confident that they can take on most threats against the sovereignty of Iraq,” former Ambassador Silliman said.

But while the Iraqi parliament approved a partial cabinet in May, several key security roles, including minister of defence, remain unfilled.

The Iraqi government also continues to lack a substantial air defence capability of its own, which could prove a major weakness if the domestic security situation were to spiral, Silliman said.

“This is one area where there will be vulnerabilities because it is clear that the pro-Iran militias have been willing to use drones and rockets and missiles against Iraqi targets inside Iraq, and as of right now, the Iraqi military doesn’t really have a way to defend against that,” he said.

Kurdish officials have been among the most vocal critics of the US withdrawal, pointing to a barrage of attacks on Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region by Iran and Iran-aligned militias thwarted by US anti-missile and anti-drone weapons this year.

While experts say the US may maintain limited air-defence capabilities in Iraq to protect its diplomatic assets, the military has reportedly removed its Erbil-based Patriot and C-RAM defensive systems from the country as part of the withdrawal.

“The threat is real – we are vulnerable, we are being attacked,” Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, told the Financial Times this week.

“Now, to be left alone without any, let’s say, appropriate defensive system,” he added, “it’s shameful.”

Shifting relationship

To be sure, the withdrawal of the remaining US troops is only one step in a larger, years-long effort to transform the US-Iraqi relationship from military to economic. Following the 2003 invasion as part of the US-led “global war on terror”, the US had initially withdrawn troops in 2011, only to redeploy them amid the rise of ISIL.

Speaking at the UNGA, al-Zaidi promised an economic “renaissance”, pledging to boost Iraq’s petrochemical industry and build new fossil fuel delivery routes beyond the Strait of Hormuz. The constriction of traffic in the strait amid the US-Israel war with Iran has had an outsized impact on Iraq, with its oil output dropping by as much as 60 percent in March.

For his part, during a meeting at the White House in July, US PresidentTrump pledged “a lot of deals” to come with Iraq, pointing to the country’s vast oil reserves.

Hamzeh Hadad, an adjunct fellow with the Middle East Security Program at the Centre for a New American Security, said there were no immediate signs the US planned a wholesale shift in its approach towards Iraq, which still houses the largest US embassy in the world in Baghdad and the largest consulate in Erbil.

But deeper economic integration may be stalled in the short term.

“It is important to note, for this to happen successfully, the situation in the region needs to improve,” Hadad said.

“Conflict around Iraq will always make economic cooperation more difficult. Not to mention, conflict gives armed groups an excuse to continue to exist.”

Lahib Higel, the deputy director of the MENA programme at the International Crisis Group, called on Washington to focus on cooperation, while avoiding “pressuring al-Zaidi into a military confrontation against pro-Iran groups that he is unlikely to win”.

“A better approach would be for the US to preserve bilateral security cooperation and support his efforts to strengthen state institutions over time,” Higel said in a social media post.

“Washington cannot dictate Baghdad’s relationship with Tehran, nor can Tehran dictate Iraq’s relationship with Washington,” she said. “What Iraq instead needs is the space to find its own balance.”

Kristen Talman contributed reporting.