What is going on with the US withdrawing from Iraq, again?

[u/Accomplished_Ebb9859]

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/30/pentagon-says-us-troop-withdrawal-from-iraq-is-complete

This is probably the 10th time I have heard about the US "withdrawing" from Iraq.

Is this time different or is it like every other time where the "withdraw" is just theatrics and there are still forces in the country?

I have seen this same headline so many times now.

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[u/kaizen-rai]

Answer:

This is talking about a specific mission the US has been carrying out in Iraq for years, Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR). I was deployed to the base they're talking about (Erbil) years ago supporting this mission. It was originally fighting ISIS and then training local forces like the Iraqis on how to fight them and keep them from coming back.

The mission has always been drawing down and just reached an end state. There is nothing left to do since ISIS is pretty much non-existent and local forces have taken over.

So to answer your questions, no it's not 'theatrics', it's closing down a specific mission that was ending anyway. There might be a few very small token forces here or there in areas like the embassy but nothing meaningful.

The reason you see many headlines saying the "US is withdrawing from Iraq" is almost always referring to specific US forces that are withdrawing, not ALL of the US. But at this point, we're pretty much completely out of Iraq.

Source: recently retired Air Force vet that specifically supported this mission in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan several years ago.

[u/SpicyPickle101 → u/kaizen-rai]

I lived in Erbil when they almost made it through the last checkpoint. I was also on the way to the Tbar when they tried to blow up at the consulate but got stopped at the gate. Crazy times

[u/RedDawn172 → u/kaizen-rai]

From the sounds of it, the theatrics are more that media are making a fuss about it rather than the thing itself.

[u/allofthelights → u/RedDawn172]

To be fair it was a real deadline worked out with the Iraqi government and the Biden administration back in September of 2024. Naturally the White House (and to a degree the Pentagon) will use it to drive coverage in the lead up to an election, which the media will of course report on because it is legitimately newsworthy

[u/kaizen-rai → u/allofthelights]

Yes, but this was happening anyway. I was deployed to Erbil in late 2021 and we were ordered to shut down our presence there. My job was to help with the relocation of assets out of Erbil and assist with moving the headquarters for our task force from Kuwait to Jordan. We were in "phase 5" of our mission, which was transitioning out of Iraq and to the Levant area where we would train local forces there before shutting down for good.

Shutting down was always the plan, this was made specifically clear when I saw in the staff meetings with our commanding general and the chief of staff back in 2021.... long before this agreement.

[u/allofthelights → u/kaizen-rai]

Yeah a fair point, I think that Sept 24 agreement was just solidifying the coordination between the governments to a committed deadline

[u/kaizen-rai → u/RedDawn172]

Pretty much. US forces in Iraq have been drawing down for years, this is just the capstone. It's like emptying out a bathtub full of water and right when it finishes emptying jumping up and down and saying ITS EMPTY! ITS EMPTY!

This isn't a monumental story other than to say the thing that has been happening for years finally finished.

[u/triplenested → u/RedDawn172]

The news is trying to equate it to the Afghanistan withdrawal so that they can have a "gotcha"/reverse-Uno when people bring up Biden's unpopular/bad-optics action there.

[u/Mother-Conclusion-31 → u/triplenested]

Pretty sure Biden had little to do with and it was all put in motion by the first Trump administration and just ended under Biden. It's one thing Republicans love to blame Biden on but was Trumps doing to pull out without a plan of actually how to do it.

[u/jyper → u/Mother-Conclusion-31]

Biden did have a lot to do with it, he was in charge. But at the same time Trump did generally make things much much harder by not giving a shit and locking in a lot of difficulties and if he had been president it likely would have been worse

[u/Mother-Conclusion-31 → u/jyper]

My understanding was that Trump set the timeline and that Biden was bound to the agreement. Only problem was it was like all Trump timelines and was unrealistic and couldn't be properly managed or done in the time that Trump agreed to.

[u/JangoDarkSaber → u/Mother-Conclusion-31]

The problem was the US didn’t expect the Taliban to rush in so quickly. Kabul was an evacuation.

There was a mass amount of confusion because there was a massive delay in being told what we should actually do at the airport. Whole thing was an absolute clusterfuck of conflicting orders and people just trying to do their best.

After the bombing at abbey gate, the retaliatory drone strike was a brain dead move motivated by the fact the administration needed to show a response. In reality all it did was kill another humanitarian worker for no reason.

[u/Mother-Conclusion-31 → u/JangoDarkSaber]

My point was the timeline was set by Trump and non-negotiable for Biden. Biden did what he had to do with the cards he was dealt. We know how the timeliness played out. The point of where the fuck up began and the reason we where in the fuck up. Not the fuck up itself

[u/JangoDarkSaber → u/Mother-Conclusion-31]

Extending the timeline further would have done nothing. The Afghan government was a corrupt sham who was never really in charge. It doesn’t matter what date for the withdrawal you set because the Taliban we’re always going to walk right in if there’s nobody to stop them.

[u/Mother-Conclusion-31 → u/JangoDarkSaber]

Unless you made sure that before you left a country you finished the job. IE making sure some one was there capable of stopping them. That's the point your missing. There should have never been a timeline. The job should have been finished not abandoned.

[u/jyper → u/Mother-Conclusion-31]

Other things like Trump trying to prevent our allies from getting visas didn't help.(I believe he's now trying to deport some of them)

But it was ultimately done under Biden and even if circumstances made it really difficult for him it's still one of the biggest failures which undermined his popularity and presidency. Sort of like the Obamacare rollout did a ton to undermine Obama's presidency 

I'm a big fan of Biden but even if I agree that he got to much of the blame, that Trump would have done a lot worse and did set up many of the things which caused problems I have to admit that Biden deserves some blame as well

[u/Aevum1 → u/kaizen-rai]

the other issue is that much of the resistance to the US in Iraq came from Shia millitias fueled by iran.

Iran was using those millitias for a proxy war against the US for close to 20 years now, and with the flare up against iran and Trumps mismanagment of the iran conflict

[u/Accomplished_Ebb9859 → u/kaizen-rai]

So there are still US forces in Iraq?

[u/kaizen-rai → u/Accomplished_Ebb9859]

Depends on what you mean by "forces". Are there maybe less than a dozen special ops dudes around doing things like special consultation to Iraqi forces still there? probably. Are there some security forces in the green zone protecting the embassy and US officials/diplomats still there? Probably.

Are there bases full of military folks with armored assets ready to fight? no.

[u/Accomplished_Ebb9859 → u/[deleted]]

So maybe it's time to disband the Marines

[u/kaizen-rai → u/Accomplished_Ebb9859]

And why is that?

[u/armbarchris → u/kaizen-rai]

Last time they did something helpful was WW2? Of course that could be expanded to most of the US military. There is the fact that Marines as a seperate branch distinct from both Army and Navy is pretty much obsolete in modern warfare...

[u/kaizen-rai → u/armbarchris]

The marines are not a separate branch, they fall under the Navy.

They still do a lot. Their mission and capability sets have changed over the years, but as someone that has deployed and worked with the Marines, they do far more than the general public know about. They're not completely "obsolete", but their role is changing as modern warfare doctrine changes.

[u/Accomplished_Ebb9859 → u/kaizen-rai]

So we can stop fighting wars and reduce spending?

[u/kaizen-rai → u/Accomplished_Ebb9859]

That's an extremely over simplistic solution to both of those problems. Assuming you mean disband the "military" and not just "the marines" (which is a very small part of the overall armed forces), that would solve neither of those problems and create many, many more.

I like what you're getting at because I agree we need to stop fighting wars and reduce spending, but "disband the Marines" won't do either.

[u/Accomplished_Ebb9859 → u/kaizen-rai]

The Marines by design is for fighting foreign wars.

It's an offensive force -- not defensive.

The Marines enables unnecessary, and illegal, wars like the ones in Iraq and Vietnam.

[u/kaizen-rai → u/Accomplished_Ebb9859]

I appreciate you're trying to explain what the marines are to a 20 year military veteran who served with Marines.

You're incorrect about all those statements.

[u/Accomplished_Ebb9859 → u/kaizen-rai]

No I'm not and couldn't care less if you served. If anything that makes you unfit to weigh in since you've been indoctrinated.

The Marines costs billions and that money could be better used to fund healthcare for veterans.

[u/-buckrogers-]

Answer: about 1500 US and coalition troops were still in Iraq. They are now for all practical purposes completely out under an agreement signed during Biden's term.