Media365
The United States, Iraq, and Iran all hailed the departure of American troops from Iraq on September 30 as a victory, albeit for very different reasons. Washington framed it as the successful culmination of its campaign to defeat ISIS; the Iraqi Prime Minister characterised it as the restoration of full national sovereignty; and Tehran celebrated what it termed the “expulsion” of US forces from the region and restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty. The dissenting voice came from the Prime Minister of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), who warned that the exit leaves the region vulnerable.
To understand that vulnerability requires looking back to when American troops landed in Iraq more than two decades ago in 2003, as part of the Coalition of the Willing, to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein. Though the US achieved regime change, it failed to establish peace and stability, eventually pulling out in 2011. However, the subsequent internal chaos resulted in ISIS seizing more than a third of the territory of Iraq and Syria, prompting the return of US forces in 2014 under the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), a coalition of about 20 countries led by the US.
Iran-aligned Shia militias in Iraq also contributed to the territorial defeat of the group by 2017, after which CJTF-OIR transitioned to advising and training the Iraqi armed forces. With ISIS’s territorial caliphate dismantled, the US and Iraq agreed in September 2024 on a two-phase transition: American forces largely vacated major bases across central and western Iraq by September 2025, while the remaining contingent operating out of Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Region, completed its departure on September 30.
As for ISIS, government forces have managed to prevent the group from reclaiming territory since September 2025, when US troops largely withdrew, leaving only a limited presence in Erbil. However, because the real-time, 24/7 intelligence support previously provided by the US was no longer available, there have been periodic security breaches by ISIS, though contained. Thus, while the activities of ISIS continue to pose a challenge, operating at the scale it achieved after 2014 — capturing and governing territory — is now almost impossible.
Moreover, Iraq faces a much lower risk of a Sunni–Shia sectarian civil war today than it did 15 years ago, as the Shia majority has consolidated its dominance across the state’s political, security, financial, and institutional structures. Sunni-majority provinces lack unified military leadership and have grown largely dependent on federal budget allocations and security forces. The major factor contributing to domestic instability today is the ideological and strategic rivalry between Iran-aligned loyalists and rival nationalist factions.
Iraq’s formal security architecture includes conventional soldiers and police under the Ministries of Defense and Interior, complemented by over 230,000 personnel formally recognised and compensated by the federal government under the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). Established in June 2014 as a volunteer force to counter ISIS, the PMF was institutionalised under Iraqi law even after ISIS lost its territorial caliphate. Paramilitary leaders justified its continued existence by citing external threats, notably Turkey’s military footprint in northern Iraq and covert Israeli operations across the region.
While the PMF legally answers to the Prime Minister as Commander-in-Chief rather than the Ministry of Defense, both pro-Iran and nationalist factions maintain their own autonomous chains of command. The pro-Iran groups have acquired advanced ballistic missiles and drones from the IRGC to conduct regional cross-border strikes across Syria and the Persian Gulf under the banner of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”. In contrast, nationalist factions within the PMF operate under domestic political and clerical commands, relying heavily on local arsenals, including vast stockpiles looted from Ba’athist armories during the 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, weapons diverted from state warehouses, and local black-market acquisitions.
Following the formal conclusion of the CJTF-OIR mission, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi set a phased deadline of June 30, 2027, for all non-state armed groups to surrender their unauthorised heavy arsenals to the Ministry of Defense and dissolve autonomous command structures. However, hardline Iran-aligned factions refuse to relinquish their strategic deterrent capabilities, triggering reciprocal reluctance from rival nationalist formations. This failure to establish a true state monopoly over arms will remain the primary contributor to Iraq’s domestic instability for years to come. Consequently, Tehran will continue to exercise decisive leverage over Iraq’s political and security landscape.
The US will also retain significant leverage. Under a legacy mechanism established through the UN after 2003, proceeds from Iraqi crude sales are deposited directly into an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Iraqi government relies entirely on this system for clearing dollar transactions. Thus, Washington holds an effective economic lever that can place immense financial pressure on Baghdad simply by slowing the supply of dollars.
As for the KRG, which was recognised under the Iraqi constitution in 2005, its relations with the federal government have remained consistently fraught over revenue sharing and territorial disputes. In fact, Erbil worries that in its desire for a stable, unified Iraqi partner capable of containing Iran, Washington will prioritise Prime Minister Zaidi’s centralisation of state authority over Kurdish federal rights, leaving KRG autonomy vulnerable to political compromise. To hedge against this, the KRG relies on pragmatic security and economic ties with Israel and Turkey.
Its vulnerability is further compounded by the long-standing presence of armed Iranian Kurdish opposition factions. Tehran has long accused these dissident groups of orchestrating cross-border subversion, regularly targeting their bases in the region with ballistic missiles and drone strikes. Their continued presence leaves Erbil caught between Iranian retaliation and domestic Kurdish public opinion. With US forces and air-defense umbrellas no longer stationed in Erbil, the KRG is left without an external deterrent against Iranian military pressure. Thus, the KRG is the entity most impacted by the departure of US troops.
The departure of US forces marks a shift to a more precarious, internal contest for power. While the immediate threat of an ISIS resurgence or a sectarian civil war has receded, the Iraqi government now faces an existential domestic test of asserting its control over armed paramilitary factions. Caught between Washington’s dollar leverage and the coercive political grip of Tehran’s allied militias, Iraq’s post-withdrawal era will be shaped by whether the state can withstand internal fragmentation, resist Iranian overreach, and preserve the fragile federal compact with the autonomous Kurdish region.
The writer is former ambassador to Egypt and former Permanent representative to the Arab League
