The Pentagon announced on Wednesday the formal completion of the US troop withdrawal from Iraq, closing Operation Inherent Resolve — the military mission that began in 2014 to fight the Islamic State. The withdrawal was agreed to in 2024 under Biden and took two years to execute. The US says it will continue providing training and intelligence support but places primary security responsibility squarely on Baghdad. The departure has a predictable split audience. Iran and its allied militias immediately framed the withdrawal as a strategic victory — a narrative they have cultivated for two decades. Iraqi security analysts struck a sharply different tone, warning that security vacuums are historically where ISIS and similar groups regenerate. Retired general Mohammed al-Juburi asked the essential question: does Iraq actually have a plan for this phase? The timeline is worth holding in full. The US invaded Iraq in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein. That invasion triggered hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, civil war, and sectarian violence — and ultimately created the conditions for ISIS to emerge. Obama declared the war over in 2011 and withdrew troops, only to send them back in 2014 when ISIS seized Mosul and vast territory. An 80-nation coalition then fought ISIS, which lost its territorial hold in Iraq by 2017 and Syria by 2019. What the Pentagon is handing back is not a stable state. It is a state with ISIS remnants, Iran-aligned militias that the Pentagon's own statement describes as undermining Iraqi sovereignty, and security forces whose readiness is disputed by their own advisers. Jassim al-Bahadli, an adviser to Iraq's security forces, told Reuters that security vacuums can be "extremely dangerous." The US framing — "successful conclusion" — is doing heavy rhetorical lifting. The mission defeated ISIS's territorial caliphate, which is a real accomplishment. But the underlying conditions that produced ISIS remain largely intact: sectarian governance, weak institutions, Iranian influence operations, and a military that has never operated without coalition intelligence and air support at this scale. The extractive pattern here runs in multiple directions. The 2003 invasion extracted stability from Iraq and lives from both countries. The 2014 intervention extracted fiscal resources from the US to repair damage the first intervention caused. The withdrawal now extracts the security guarantee from Iraqi civilians while allowing Washington to claim mission success and Tehran to claim strategic victory. The people who bear the cost if this goes wrong are, as always, Iraqi civilians. The honest question is not whether the withdrawal was right — maintaining a permanent military presence in a sovereign country that asked you to leave is not a real option — but whether the handoff was adequate. The Pentagon's statement that it will continue training and intelligence support reads as a hedge against the obvious risk: that this ends the way the 2011 withdrawal ended, with a rapid deterioration that forces a return.
