Iraq seeks quick exit of US forces but no deadline set

Iraq wants a quick and orderly negotiated exit of US-led military forces from the country but has not set a deadline, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani has said. He described their presence as destabilising, reported Reuters, amid regional spill over from Israel’s military offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Calls by mostly Shia Muslim factions, many of which are close to Iran, for the US-led coalition’s departure have gained steam after a series of US air strikes on Iran-linked militias that are also part of Iraq’s formal security forces. The air strikes apparently came in response to dozens of drone and missile attacks on US forces since Israel launched its Gaza offensive, and have raised fears that Iraq could once again become a theatre for regional conflict.

“There is a need to reorganise this relationship so that it is not a target or justification for any party, internal or foreign, to tamper with stability in Iraq and the region,” Sudani told Reuters in an interview in Baghdad on Tuesday. The US exit should be negotiated under “a process of understanding and dialogue,” he said, giving the first details of his thinking about the future of the coalition since his 5 January announcement that Iraq would begin the process of closing it down.

“Let’s agree on a time frame [for the coalition’s exit] that is, honestly, quick, so that they don’t remain long and the attacks keep happening,” he said, adding that only an end to Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza would stop the risk of regional escalation. “This is the only solution. Otherwise, we will see more expansion of the arena of conflict in a sensitive region for the world that holds much of its energy supply.”

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A US withdrawal would likely increase concern in Washington about the influence of arch foe Iran over Iraq’s ruling elite. Iran-backed Shia groups gained strength in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation.

The Pentagon said on Monday that it had no plans to withdraw US troops, which are in Iraq at the invitation of its government.

Iraq is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer. It has been among the fiercest critics of Israel’s Gaza offensive, describing the mass killing and displacement of Palestinian civilians as a textbook case of genocide, a claim which Israel denies.

The government in Baghdad has repeatedly also said that the attacks by armed groups on foreign forces and diplomatic missions in Iraq are illegal and against the country’s interests. Some of the perpetrators have been arrested, it pointed out, and some planned attacks have been prevented. At the same time, Baghdad has condemned US strikes on bases used by the groups, as well as a recent strike against a senior militia commander in the heart of Baghdad, as grave violations of Iraqi sovereignty.

Critics say that the armed groups, including Kataeb Hezbollah and Haraket Hezbollah Al-Nujaba, use their status as members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a state security force that began as a grouping of militias in 2014, as a cover. When striking at US forces, they operate outside the chain of command under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq; when the US retaliates, they mourn their losses as members of the PMF and reap the rewards of rising anti-US sentiment.

US-led forces invaded Iraq and toppled former leader Saddam Hussein in 2003, withdrawing in 2011 but then returning in 2014 to fight Islamic State/Daesh as part of an international coalition. The US currently has some 2,500 troops in Iraq. However, with Daesh defeated territorially in 2017 and on the wane ever since, Sudani said that the coalition’s raison d’être had long-since ended.

Calls for the coalition’s withdrawal have been around for years and, so far, little has changed. Iraq’s parliament voted in 2020 for its departure days after the US assassinated top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and a senior Iraqi militant commander in a strike outside Baghdad International Airport.

The following year, the US announced the end of its combat mission in Iraq and a shift to advising and assisting Iraqi security forces, a move that changed little on the ground.

The situation in Gaza has put the issue back centre stage, with many Iraqi groups that brought Sudani’s government to power and are close to Tehran calling for the final exit of all foreign forces, a move long sought by Iran and its regional allies. The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, for example, said in a speech on Friday that US strikes in Iraq should pave the way for the final withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, which would also make their presence in north-east Syria untenable.

According to Sudani, he is seeking the coalition’s exit because Iraq can now defend itself from terrorism and should exert full sovereignty over its territory. This avoids giving anyone an excuse to draw Iraq into regional conflict. “Ending its presence will prevent more tensions and the entanglement of internal and regional security issues,” said the Iraqi prime minister.

He added that Iraq is open to establishing bilateral relations and engaging in security cooperation with coalition nations, including the US, which could include training and advising Iraqi security forces as well as weapons purchases. “[The US] is not an enemy to us and we are not at war with it, but if these tensions continue it will definitely impact and create a gap in this relationship,” he concluded.

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