Iraq is set to hold four “Sovereignty Days”, a national holiday marking the complete withdrawal of US troops from the country and underscoring the deep symbolism of the exit after more than two decades of foreign intervention. Wednesday’s withdrawal deadline affirmed the exodus of a few hundred remaining US soldiers in the country, who have served in advisory roles in a coalition operation against ISIL (ISIS) first launched in 2015. While the exit plan predates Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, it fits into his wider vision of reasserting Iraqi state authority.
That encompasses accelerating efforts to disarm all militias in the country by June 2027, including several powerful pro-Iran groups who have launched attacks throughout the region amid the US-Israeli war with Iran. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last week, al-Zaidi said his government was “striving to ensure that the state is the ultimate decision-maker in matters of peace and war, and that weapons and tools of power remain in the hands of its constitutional institutions”. He added, “With the end of the international coalition’s mission in Iraq, we are moving our relationship with our strategic partners to a new phase, moving from military cooperation to economic and development cooperation in service of our common interests.” Indeed, the US withdrawal appears to be part of a strategy by al-Zaidi to “politically weaken” influential militias, including those linked to Iran, according to Douglas Silliman, the former US ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait.
Those militias have long pointed to the presence of the US military, and other foreign actors like Turkiye, as a pillar justification for maintaining their own weapons stores and chains of command. Some have already indicated they will refuse to hand over their arms. It is a high-stakes gambit, leaving room for Iran to assert greater influence in the country and opening the door to a potentially catastrophic domestic standoff down the line.
It also creates the potential for increased pressure from the US if Iraq-based groups continue to target Washington’s assets. The country has remained relatively stable in recent years following the 2017 territorial defeat of ISIL, despite being enveloped by conflict and insecurity on its borders. That stability has generally persisted since the US began its troop withdrawal in 2020 under US President Donald Trump, with the remaining military personnel consolidating at an airbase in Erbil, in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, at the end of 2025.
To be sure, al-Zaidi has already sought to build in some safeguards amid the wider effort to disarm and integrate militias into Iraqi government forces, pushing back on an initial September 30, 2026 deadline to June 2027 to bring all weapons under state control. Al-Zaidi told The New York Times earlier this month that both the US and Iran-aligned militias have given assurances that they will refrain from any attacks for 90 days following the US withdrawal, in an effort to prevent the situation from devolving in the short term. Still, Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House, said militias aligned with Iran’s “axis of resistance” in the region ultimately remain “in full-on war mode, working with the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] in the region.
And so they will continue to target US and US interests.” While al-Zaidi has promised continued integration and cooperation with the US and other Western allies, there is likely disquiet behind the rhetoric, Mansour assessed, with some seeing the US’s erstwhile presence in the country as having served as a bulwark against a wider policy pivot. The targeting could eventually come in the form of sanctions or in an escalation of US and Israeli strikes on Iraqi territory, Mansour said. Mohammad Salih, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on Iraq, also agreed that enthusiasm for the US troop withdrawal was likely more subdued within some segments of the Iraqi government than public statements – and national holidays – suggest.
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