The US-led imperialist military coalition withdrew in defeat from Iraq on September 30 following decades of military aggression, invasions, and occupations.
Following the retreat, the Iraqi government declared a four-day “Sovereignty Days” national holiday, with Iraqis across the country parading in the streets waving national flags. Some demonstrators carried replicas of drones used by the Iraqi resistance to attack US forces in the country.
A commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), a coalition of Iraqi resistance groups, called the withdrawal “a historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups and honorable Iraqis, and a crushing defeat for the American project”.
Ashab al-Kahf, an IRI militia, celebrated “the humiliating withdrawal of the American occupier under the strikes of the Resistance’s drones and missiles.”
The imperialist withdrawal was supposed to take place alongside the disarmament of Iraqi resistance forces, including the IRI, according to deals between the US and Iraq. The IRI rejected such demands, with a commander of the militia Harakat al-Nujaba telling CNN, “We believe the disarmament demand is American, Zionist, Western, and Gulf-backed, aimed at weakening Iraq.”
The Iraqi government has since pushed the disarmament deadline to June 30, 2027. According to an Iraqi government spokesman, the government rejected a US request to extend its occupation in late August.
The US military claimed the withdrawal marked the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). However, the Iraqi and US governments had already declared victory over ISIS in 2017.
The US military also cited attacks by Iran and Iraqi resistance groups across the region contributing to their decision to retreat. According to a June Inspector General report to Congress, US personnel and infrastructure in Iraq faced more than 600 strikes between February and April, forcing the emergency evacuation of more than 2,800 US contractors and affiliates by mid-March.
In recent years, US imperialism has consolidated its forces in Iraqi Kurdistan, which borders Iran. The US and Israel have sought to mobilize and arm Iranian-Kurdish forces to destabilize Iran and facilitate an invasion and partition of the country. Iranian and Iraqi resistance strikes have thwarted these efforts.
Military and intelligence analysts on both sides of the war have commented that the withdrawal is a success for Iraqi resistance groups and Iran.
The withdrawal does not end US military operations in the region. The Pentagon has transferred the imperialist coalition’s headquarters to Jordan, where some US troops in Iraq are also being redeployed to. The Pentagon said it would still provide “targeted training and intelligence support” to the Iraqi government and its military.
Nor does the withdrawal end US imperialism’s economic and political domination over Iraq. A financial framework established in 2003 following the US invasion of Iraq gives US imperialism control over Iraq’s oil revenue, which accounts for 90% of the state budget, according to The Arab Weekly.
Earlier this year, Trump suspended oil revenue payments to Iraq after the dominant, pro-resistance parliamentary bloc backed an Iran-aligned candidate for prime minister. The Iraqi parliament subsequently approved Ali al-Zaidi as a compromise candidate.
The US launched a major military campaign against Iraq in 1991 and imposed genocidal sanctions before invading the country again in 2003 under the false pretext that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Following the invasion, US forces hanged Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, occupied the country, and plundered its oil and other resources before officially withdrawing in 2011.
US forces returned in 2014 under the pretext of fighting ISIS. Economic and political frameworks established during and after the occupation further consolidated US domination. In 2024, the Iraqi government and the US agreed to a phased US withdrawal.
More than 4,500 US forces were annihilated and 32,000 injured during the course of its occupation. Estimates of the number of Iraqis murdered directly and indirectly by the US are in the hundreds of thousands to millions.
Image: Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq resistance fighters. Credit: Press TV.
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