Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani told Bloomberg News in an interview published Tuesday that he believes there “is no need” for troops from America or other members of the coalition against the Islamic State to remain in the country, suggesting he will soon expel them.
Sudani gave the interview to Bloomberg on Sunday, shortly before Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian departed the country. Pezeshkian, inaugurated into the office on July 30 after the death of predecessor Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, made a tour of Iraq his first international trip as president. Pezeshkian made sure to spend time in Baghdad, where he signed 14 agreements with Sudani, and in the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where he wowed officials by speaking fluent Kurdish.
Tehran has transparently pursued increased political influence over the Iraqi government, bankrolling and advising a variety of Shiite terrorist organizations that have become close to Baghdad. Iran has notoriously supported the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mostly Shiite militias that became a formal part of the Iraqi military during the war on the Islamic State, and reportedly recently aided with the establishment of offices for the Yemeni Houthi terrorist movement and the Sunni terrorists of Hamas in the country.
The prime minister did not appear to include Iran in his call to end the international military presence in his country meant to combat the threat of the Islamic State.
“Today, Iraq in 2024 is not the same as Iraq of 2014. We have defeated Daesh [ISIS] with our sacrifices and the Iraqi people’s position from all its components and factions and with the support of the international community and friends,” Sudani said in a video of the interview published by Bloomberg on Tuesday. “And we appreciate that.”
“We found that the justifications have ended. There is no longer a need for a coalition of 86 countries. We moved from a period of wars to a period of stability. Daesh doesn’t pose a threat to the state,” he insisted.
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Bloomberg quoted the prime minister as insisting justifications for the American-led coalition in the country to be present “are no longer there.”
“There is no need for a coalition. We have moved on from wars to stability. ISIS is not really representing a challenge,” he reportedly said. Sudani added that he had allegedly discussed removing American troops from the country with outgoing American President Joe Biden in April.
“Ending the coalition’s mission – and this is an important point – doesn’t mean a breakdown between Iraq and the coalition countries, including the United States, on the contrary,” Sudani insisted. “At the same time, we are in bilateral talks to build a sustainable security relationship.”
The United States is currently believed to maintain 2,500 troops in Iraq as part of the war on the Islamic State, formally known as “Operation Inherent Resolve.” Reports have surfaced for weeks that Iraqi officials are pressuring Washington to leave the country, asserting that the Islamic State “caliphate” has been eradicated since 2017 and, thus, no need exists for American troops to be there.
On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Iraq and America had agreed on a deal in which American forces would fully depart most of Iraq by 2025, staying another year in the KRG. Defense Minister Thabit al-Abbasi reportedly confirmed the plan with the Saudi news agency al-Arabiya, while the Post quoted anonymous Iraqi officials. The Post used similar language about building a “sustainable security” partnership with America as Sudani did in his recent interview.
American forces withdrawing from Iraq would remove a major obstacle for Iranian influence. In May, then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi pressured KRG President Nechirvan Barzani, visiting Tehran at the time, to distance the Kurds from the U.S. government. The Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga were an indispensable force in eradicating the Islamic State “caliphate,” but the KRG’s ties to Washington eroded significantly after former President Donald Trump refused to support a 2017 referendum asking Kurds if they supported secession from Iraq.
“Complete disarmament and the absence of anti-revolutionary elements in the Iraqi territory are a necessity,” the Iranian state-run PressTV quoted Raisi as saying. “We are confident about the goodwill and friendship of our Iraqi and Kurdish brothers.”
In Iraq this week, Pezeshkian, a self-declared “moderate,” emphasized Iran’s hope to pursue more unified efforts with both Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of the KRG. The Iranian Foreign Ministry described Pezeshkian’s ability to speak Kurdish as a particular victory for Tehran, achieving “years of cultural and media diplomacy in half a working day.”
Publicly absent from those conversations were the fact that Iran-backed terrorist organizations are increasingly welcome in Baghdad. The New York Times reported on Sunday that both Hamas and the Houthis, formally known by the name “Ansarallah,” have opened official offices in the Iraqi capital. While Hamas, a Sunni organization, appears to be merely tolerated, the leftist newspaper described the Houthis as receiving a “warm” welcome from the PMF and other Shiite radicals.
The Iraqi government’s claims that the Islamic State no longer poses a threat to the country have for months been undermined by persistent ISIS attacks nationwide. Bloomberg noted that “US and Iraqi soldiers conducted a joint raid against ISIS in western Iraq as recently as late August and killed 14 militants, including senior leaders.” The Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported on Monday, additionally, that Iraqi security operations resulted in the arrest of six ISIS terrorists stockpiling explosives in Baghdad.
“The security services carried out a number of preemptive operations during which six suspects were arrested according to various legal articles and a pile of explosive materials (remnants of ISIS terrorist gangs), unlicensed weapons, and ammunition were seized,” Iraqi state media detailed.
The arrests, Sudani told Bloomberg, prove “the security apparatus has reached a level of capability” in which it does not need American partners.
