The United States should completely withdraw from Iraq

After negotiating for most of a year, U.S. and Iraqi officials finally reached an agreement Friday on the U.S. presence in Iraq, a deal that was frankly long overdue.

Although U.S. officials insist that Washington will not withdraw all of its 2,500 troops from the country and are reluctant to use the term withdrawal, the United States will reduce its deployment over the next two years. According to the two-phase plan presented on September 27, the US-backed mission against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq will officially end by September 2025 and withdraw US troops from some bases in the country. In the second phase, Iraq agreed to allow the US military to continue using its country to support ongoing operations against ISIS in neighboring Syria, where some 900 US troops are based, until 2026. reported the Associated Press.

The announcement is likely to calm lawmakers, commentators and former generals in the national security establishment, who are still petrified of a full U.S. withdrawal and quick to assert that it would be dangerous to U.S. interests. Earlier this month, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers wrote on X: A withdrawal from Iraq in this manner would benefit and embolden Iran and ISIS. I am deeply concerned about the impacts such a decision would have on our national security. Retired Gen. Joseph Votel, former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, also said a U.S. departure would inevitably lead to the resurgence of ISIS as it seeks to fill the void left behind.

But these criticisms do not stand up to scrutiny. The United States needs a clean break, not a conditions-based transition that could prolong its mission for years to come. (The Biden administration has declined to provide details on how many U.S. troops will remain in Iraq.)

First, it is important to note that the United States has already achieved its objectives against ISIS in Iraq. From the moment the Obama administration assembled a broad coalition and began striking ISIS positions in September 2014, the U.S. mission was clear and measurable: eliminate ISIS's territorial caliphate, which its peak was as large as Britain and had around 8 million people, and earned around $1 million a day from selling oil on the black market. At the time, ISIS was a highly committed opponent and one of the richest terrorist organizations in history, with tens of thousands of fighters from more than 80 countries.

However, ISIS always had a fundamental weakness: it had no friends, much less allies, and alienated everyone in its path. The group's utter depravity toward local populations as well as its desire to supplant governments ultimately proved its undoing. The West, led by the United States, viewed ISIS as a magnet for jihadists seeking to attack its population. Minorities like the Kurds and Yazidis viewed ISIS as a band of messianic, bloodthirsty thugs who sought to wipe out their communities. And states that otherwise had intense geopolitical rivalries among themselves – Iran, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the Gulf states, to name just a few – have all agreed that the destruction of ISIS was in their collective interest.

The results speak for themselves. Thanks to an intense three-year U.S. bombing operation, combined with a hard-fought ground campaign that involved everyone from U.S. special operations forces and the Iraqi army to Kurdish peshmerga and Shiite militias backed by Iran, ISIS advances were halted and pushed back. In December 2017, the Iraqi government declared that the IS territorial caliphate was in the ashes of history (a similar declaration was made in Syria approximately 15 months later). The caliphate remains eliminated to this day, so much so that a senior US official participated in a think tank earlier this year marking the 5th anniversary of its defeat.

Many in the peripheral region say that just because the IS territorial caliphate no longer exists does not mean the threat is over. This is a legitimate concern; ISIS is reportedly on track to double the number of attacks in Iraq and Syria compared to last year.

Yet to think that the entire effort to combat ISIS will fail in the absence of U.S. troops is to leave all other local actors without agency. The Iraqi government, the Turks, the Russians and even the hated Assad regime continue to have an interest in ensuring that ISIS does not rebuild its caliphate. Their military capabilities against ISIS are also better today than when the mission began a decade ago. The Iraqi army is more competent than ever in planning, organizing and conducting independent operations against ISIS resistance fighters on the country's periphery. The same can be said about the Peshmerga, who, according to the Defense Department's inspector general for the counter-ISIS mission, have improved mission planning and counter-insurgency operations in their area of ​​responsibility.

The United States would still have options even with a complete troop withdrawal. The U.S. intelligence community will surely remain focused on the group and will not hesitate to take action should an imminent plot be detected or a high-profile terrorist emerge. The United States has proven it can do both without a ground presence. In August 2022, a year after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, Washington killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike. Last January, the United States warned Iran of an imminent attack by ISIS which ultimately materialized. In March, the United States did the same with Russia, sharing highly specific intelligence about an ISIS plot in Moscow, which the Russians unfortunately failed to stop.

Is the IS completely broken? No, but that's not the right question. The right question is whether U.S. interests are best served by remaining in Iraq in perpetuity, especially when it presents even more security concerns.

The American ground presence is a gift to Iran and its allied militias in the Middle East. This is because the presence of American bases on foreign lands gives them a rallying call and a close target; US troops have been targeted more than 200 times since October, largely because of Washington's support for Israel. One of those attacks, in late January, killed three U.S. service members at a small outpost in Jordan, near the border with Iraq and Syria.

President Biden responded by striking dozens of militia and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps positions in Iraq and Syria. Yet rocket attacks resumed in July, and in August, five U.S. troops were injured when two rockets struck al-Asad air base. In other words, the United States is taking unnecessary risks in the name of a mission accomplished years ago.

The Biden administration has set the stage for a more normal and commercial relationship with the Iraqi government. The outstanding question, yet to be determined, is whether the next president will finally realize that the United States has accomplished all it can in Iraq. And if so, when?

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://time.com/7026080/us-troop-withdrawal-iraq/ The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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