After 23 Years, America Leaves Iraq: The War's Final Chapter
The last American soldiers have left Iraq, closing the book on the biggest US war of this century. On September 30, the US military vacated Erbil Air Base in Iraq's Kurdistan region, ending a military presence that began with the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein and then stretched, with one long interruption, across 23 years, three presidencies, and hundreds of billions of dollars. What ended quietly at an airbase in northern Iraq carries enormous consequences for Iraq, for Washington, and for the Middle East's shifting balance of power.
The Final Withdrawal
US Central Command said in a statement on Wednesday that the last of its forces had vacated Erbil Air Base in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The base was the final footprint of the American military mission after US forces withdrew from the rest of the country earlier this year — about 1,500 service members had remained in the Kurdish north after the January pullout.
The anti-ISIS coalition that had been headquartered in Iraq will now move to Jordan, according to Centcom, even as US forces continue counterterrorism operations in neighboring Syria.
At a ceremony in Baghdad on Wednesday, Iraqi leaders and US military commanders marked the end of the US-led mission at what had been the joint military command center across from the American Embassy. The ceremony was closed to the press but was to be broadcast later on Iraqi state television.
The withdrawal was agreed in 2024 under President Joe Biden and carried out by Donald Trump's administration, which is simultaneously waging its own confrontation with Iran next door. Trump struck a confident tone, saying in a Truth Social post that the United States leaves Iraq with a "wonderful" prime minister — Ali Faleh al-Zaidi — who would, he said, "hopefully be able to handle things very well."
Iraqi Prime Minister al-Zaidi, who presided over the handover ceremony, described the withdrawal as the beginning of "a new phase" defined by Iraq's sovereignty, stronger state institutions, and "balanced partnerships with its friends."
The departure followed the timeline Washington and Baghdad set in September 2024, when the two governments formally agreed to conclude the coalition's military mission in Iraq. The agreement initially set the end of the coalition mission in Iraq for no later than September 2025, while allowing the broader coalition mission connected to operations in Syria to continue until September 2026, subject to conditions on the ground. In January, Iraq's Defense Ministry said Iraqi forces had assumed full control of Ain al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq following the departure of US-led coalition personnel.
23 Years of War: How We Got Here
The American war in Iraq began in March 2003, when US forces invaded to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein, whom Washington falsely accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction. What was launched as a swift regime-change operation became a grinding insurgency and a civil war that devastated the country.
This was not the first American withdrawal. US forces pulled out in December 2011, declaring their mission over amid mounting Iraqi political opposition to the presence of US troops. Three years later, the Iraqi government invited them back: the Islamic State militant group had seized roughly one-third of Iraq after key Iraqi army divisions collapsed and retreated. The US military, alongside Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters, territorially defeated ISIS in 2017, driving its remnants into Syria, where the group was defeated by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces two years later.
The scattered remnants of the Islamic State have remained capable of carrying out attacks through hidden cells, which is why many in Iraq greeted this week's withdrawal with a mixture of celebration and dread.
A Celebration, With Anxiety
According to Reuters, Iraqis celebrated the departure of US forces after more than two decades of war on Wednesday, though many feared that any security vacuum could increase the power of Iran-backed militias or provide an opening for the return of the Islamic State.
Iraqi troops paraded in vehicles through the streets of Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Najaf to mark the pullout. The withdrawal "fills our hearts with joy," said Baghdad resident Ahmed Salah, who said he felt reborn at the age of 70. But he added that it was now time for powerful militia groups to surrender their weapons, "and let the government be the one responsible to protect me and you on the ground, sky and water."
Iran, which has entrenched its influence in Iraq through allied armed groups and is determined to drive all US forces out of the Middle East, views the US pullout as a triumph for its "axis of resistance" of allied armed groups across the region. The Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq movement welcomed the end of the US military presence and said Iraq now needs to strengthen its own defense capabilities, particularly by obtaining advanced air-defense systems.
The departure carries particular significance for Iraq's Kurds. The United States has been a major security partner of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and Kurdish officials have expressed concern that the removal of US forces and air-defense systems could leave the region more exposed to attacks from Iran and Iran-backed groups.
What This Means
The end of the US military mission in Iraq is the formal close of an era that reshaped the Middle East — and a reminder of how differently it ended than it began. The 2003 invasion was sold as a quick liberation that would plant democracy in the heart of the Arab world; it instead unleashed years of insurgency, sectarian slaughter, and Iranian entrenchment that Washington is still trying to undo. The irony of this week's withdrawal is that the United States is leaving an Iraq where Iranian influence runs deeper than at any point in the country's modern history — the very outcome American forces spent two decades trying to prevent.
For Washington, the withdrawal is both a political statement and a strategic repositioning. Trump gets to claim he ended another "endless war," a promise that has always resonated with his base. Militarily, the Pentagon is not abandoning the region: officials said the US will maintain regional capabilities such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance that can be used in and around Iraq, while the coalition's headquarters moves to Jordan and counterterrorism operations continue in Syria.
For Baghdad, the withdrawal is the sovereignty moment Prime Minister al-Zaidi described — and a test. Iraq's National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji called the end of the US-led coalition mission "an important milestone" that would "solidify sovereignty" and serve Iraq's national interests. But sovereignty on paper will be measured against the government's ability to control the armed factions inside its own borders, and to keep ISIS remnants from exploiting the transition.
What Happens Next
The immediate challenge for Baghdad is holding the security situation together. ISIS, though territorially defeated, retains cells capable of attacks, and the question of whether a reduced international footprint gives the group room to regroup will dominate Iraqi security planning in the months ahead. The future of the powerful Iran-backed militias — many of them formally part of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces yet operating with considerable independence — is the other unresolved fault line. Ahmed Salah's demand in Baghdad this week, that the militias surrender their weapons to the state, is one the government has heard before and never fully answered.
The US-Iraq relationship now shifts to what officials call a normal bilateral security partnership — advisers and arms sales rather than combat boots. Whether that partnership deepens or atrophies will depend heavily on how Tehran behaves next door, where Trump's administration is already in open confrontation with Iran.
For Iraq's Kurds, the coming months may be the most precarious. Kurdish officials have long counted American air defenses and the deterrent effect of the US flag as a shield against Iranian and Iran-backed pressure. How Baghdad fills that gap will be one of the first real tests of the "new phase" the prime minister promised.
Twenty-three years after American tanks rolled into Baghdad, the last American soldiers have gone home. Iraq is left, finally, to write its own security story — with all of the promise, and all of the peril, that independence entails.
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