Withdrawal and non-withdrawal: The naivete of comparing Iraq to Afghanistan

The prevailing media tendency to draw parallels between the exit of U.S. forces from Iraq and the humiliating, chaotic collapse in Afghanistan reveals a profound analytical naivete—one that is perhaps intentionally cultivated. Such comparisons overlook a crucial structural distinction: the difference between a shattered military campaign and the institutionalization of indirect hegemony.

Years ago, Paul Bremer, the former U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, offered an almost grotesque counterpoint to the Afghan tragedy when he flatly rejected any comparison between the two conflicts, insisting that Iraq was making “steady political progress.” Yet the harsh reality remains as the British analyst Matthew Parris once framed it: Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan failed catastrophically, wasting countless American and allied lives in a war that culminated in a panicked exit.

In Iraq, however, the situation is anything but a final departure. What we are witnessing is not a withdrawal, but a strategic re-engineering of control—replacing overt military presence with mechanisms of financial and political leverage.

Washington did not truly abandon Iraq; it merely staged a theatrical exit. Political elites in Baghdad gathered to listen to an American general offer patronizing advice in Arabic, warning Iraqis to “prepare for the attacks of jackals as they would for lions.” Yet on the ground, Washington remains deeply entrenched. It no longer needs thousands of boots on the ground when it holds the master key to Iraq’s economic lifeline and financial decision-making.

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Washington’s contemporary strategy shifts power from the barrel of a gun to the strength of the dollar.

The U.S. administration does not require forward operating bases to dictate terms in Baghdad as long as Iraq’s national treasury is managed through the corridors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Because Iraq’s oil revenues are deposited into accounts overseen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Iraqi dinar, state payrolls, and basic import capacity remain perpetually dependent on a green light from Washington.

This structural financial leverage renders any rhetoric about “full sovereignty” or a “complete withdrawal” little more than political theater. A sovereign state that does not hold the keys to its own vault possesses only ceremonial authority.

Politically, Washington exercises its influence in Baghdad through a silent veto. A striking example of this leverage occurred when an explicit U.S. veto derailed Nouri al-Maliki’s bid for the premiership, prompting Iraqi political factions to swiftly fall into line. The ability to draw red lines around cabinet formations and dictate who may or may not hold power demonstrates that American influence has not waned; it has simply become more concentrated and effective behind closed doors.

Against this backdrop of financial dependence, the Green Zone government’s celebratory declarations of “restored national sovereignty” ring hollow.

What sovereignty exists for a political system that stands paralyzed before armed militias operating outside state control and taking operational cues directly from Tehran?

The notion of sovereignty becomes a farce when influential political factions openly pledge allegiance to Iran, surrendering Iraq’s national security decisions and reducing its territory and airspace to a transit corridor for regional proxy strategies.

Perhaps the most tragic symptom of this eroded sovereignty is the structural inability of any Iraqi prime minister to confront the corrupt oligarchic class plundering state resources. The executive branch remains bound by the armaments and financial cartels that reinforce one another within Iraq’s ethno-sectarian power-sharing system. A state cannot claim national sovereignty when it is incapable of bringing high-level corruption to justice or safeguarding public funds from systematic embezzlement. Sovereignty is not a speech delivered at a podium or a flag raised at an official ceremony; it is the monopoly on legitimate violence, the enforcement of the rule of law, and the protection of public treasury.

What Washington terms a “withdrawal” is fundamentally a restructuring of presence—substituting combat troops with diplomats, security contractors, intelligence networks, and financial levers. In Afghanistan, the machinery of statehood collapsed instantly as planes departed Kabul. In Iraq, Washington constructed an institutional ecosystem engineered to remain incapable of functioning without American oversight. Political elites in Baghdad understand that any genuine breach with Washington risks immediate economic paralysis that could unravel the regime within weeks.

American commentator Kathleen Parker summarized the arc of U.S. foreign policy failure from Iraq to Afghanistan in a single observation: the United States cannot invent nations in its own image under the guise of exporting democracy. Similarly, Paul Rogers, emeritus professor of peace studies at Bradford University, noted that the Afghan war was merely the first of four failed interventions—alongside Iraq, Libya, and Syria—that left behind a “broken windows world” defined by shattered statehood, displaced populations, ruined infrastructure, and systemic corruption.

Despite attempts by Western think tanks to frame current troop reconfigurations as a transition toward a “bilateral security partnership,” Washington’s strategic posture remains ambivalent. Talk of an “organized exit” repeatedly collides with regional realities that force the U.S. back into active crisis management.

The ultimate contrast between Kabul and Baghdad lies not in victory or defeat, but in the nature of American power. In Afghanistan, the state building experiment collapsed entirely as the last aircraft departed. In Iraq, armored vehicles were simply replaced by the Federal Reserve, and military outposts by financial and political leverage.

There can be no genuine withdrawal from a state that remains financially tethered, security-compromised, and politically constrained.

What Iraq experiences today is not the reclamation of national destiny, but an enduring state of non-withdrawal—one in which the former occupying power retains the keys to the treasury while local elites divide the remnants of the state.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.