The last few hundred US personnel are leaving Iraq on 30 September 2026, ending Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition mission against the Islamic State group (ISIS). It closes an American military presence that began with the 2003 invasion, with a gap between the December 2011 withdrawal and the return in 2014. Troops and equipment, including Patriot and C-RAM (counter-rocket, artillery and mortar) air-defence batteries, are being redeployed to Jordan and other regional bases. US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that the exit will be quiet and closed to the press, according to NPR reporting on 27 September.
The Iraqi government has declared four national "Sovereignty Days" public holidays. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi called 30 September "the final and irreversible date", according to Deutsche Welle and Al Jazeera. He said: "October 1 will be a new day in the course of the Iraqi state, with the country free of any foreign military presence." Of roughly 2,500 US troops in Iraq this year, only a few hundred remained by late September. At the height of the war, there were approximately 170,000. The departure comes while the United States is at war with Iran, a conflict that began on 28 February 2026. What ends today is a military footprint. Much else continues.
A quiet exit, and a footprint that does not fully end
In December 2011, the last American troops left Iraq after a flag-rolling ceremony broadcast to the world, and President Barack Obama declared the war over. There is no equivalent in 2026. Crisis.Zone reads the silence as a sign of an ambiguous moment. The exit comes during a war with Iran, while Iran-aligned factions celebrate, ISIS sleeper cells reportedly stir and Kurdish leaders say they feel exposed. That is analysis, not an official explanation.
The military exit is also not a full disengagement. The United States keeps the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad and the largest consulate in Erbil. The relationship reverts to the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement, an agreement signed under President George W. Bush that provides for continued security cooperation without requiring troops on the ground. A regional source told Al Jazeera it is likely to become "less centred on a visible military footprint and more focused on intelligence, training, technical support, capacity-building and institutional cooperation". Crisis.Zone examined what the departure changes for Iran-aligned factions in an analysis published on 29 September.
2003: a justification that did not hold
The invasion began on 20 March 2003, on the stated case that Saddam Hussein's government held weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq Survey Group, the US-led post-invasion weapons hunt, concluded in 2004 that Iraq had destroyed its weapons programmes in the 1990s. No stockpiles were found. In this analysis, the loss of that founding rationale weakened the legitimacy of the American presence in Iraq and the region from an early stage. Later demands for withdrawal, including from armed factions, draw on it. It is one thread among several, not the only cause of what followed.
The invasion also removed the government of an adversary of Iran. The Shia-led political order that replaced it opened space for Iranian influence. Sectarian identity became a mobilisation tool over the following years, used by Iraqi parties, armed groups and outside powers. That is a political construction, not an ancient inevitability.
Observers are reading: how ISIS assessments, Kurdish air-defence gaps and the loss of US intelligence enablers interact after 30 September.
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From the Soleimani strike to the 2024 framework
In January 2020, a US drone strike at Baghdad airport killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia leader. Iraq's parliament voted to expel US forces. Iran-backed militias repeatedly fired on US bases, and the United States retaliated. Iraq kept close security ties with both Washington and Tehran, which made it a proxy battlefield.
In September 2024, the Biden administration and Baghdad agreed a framework to end the coalition mission by 30 September 2026. A phased drawdown began in 2025, with troops consolidating at the Erbil airbase. NATO completed the withdrawal of its own advisory mission in March 2026.
Baghdad's choice of date
Iraqi politics, in Crisis.Zone's reading, shaped the timing. In January 2026, the Shia Coordination Framework alliance backed former premier Nouri al-Maliki after President Donald Trump warned that US support would end if Maliki returned. Ali al-Zaidi eventually emerged as a compromise candidate and was inaugurated in May. In July he visited the White House, met Trump and promised militia disarmament by 30 September. In September he moved that deadline to June 2027.
For the government, al-siyada (sovereignty) is the organising word of the exit. Iraqis are not passive here. An Iraqi official says Baghdad pushed for the date, and it set the holidays and the disarmament timeline. The militias chose their responses, and Kurdish leaders made their case for staying longer.
Observers are reading: which factions have complied, which have refused, and why the Popular Mobilisation Forces mechanism may not deliver disarmament.
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Observers are reading: three scenarios to June 2027, with the indicators that would separate consolidation, stalemate and escalation.
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Endings that are not endings
The human ledger frames the day. About 4,500 American service members had died by the December 2011 withdrawal. Iraq Body Count documents roughly 187,000 to 210,000 civilian deaths from violence since 2003. Of the US service members killed in the 2026 Iran war (17 or 18, depending on the source), seven died in Iraq. The last was an Army sergeant who died during a controlled detonation of a drone at a base near Erbil in July. NPR's Jane Arraf notes that "a lot of young people, almost all young people, have never seen a U.S. soldier".
Abdulrahman al-Zobaie, a Sunni tribal leader in Fallujah, captured the tension: "All Iraqis aspire to full sovereignty, and no Iraqi would dispute that. But I believe that the (US-led coalition) leaving in this way and creating a vacuum is what all Iraqis fear."
On the evidence available, Iraq's government holds more formal control of its territory from 1 October and fewer tools to defend it. The factions have a claim to victory and have lost their most visible justification. The US is leaving and staying, through its embassy, its financial leverage and the 2008 framework. Crisis.Zone will track whether the June 2027 date holds, whether the PMF directorate receives weapons, and whether the airspace pledge becomes more than rhetoric.
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