The presence of U.S. forces in Iraq remains a subject of debate, particularly in light of the diminishing threat from ISIS and the growing risks posed by Iranian-backed militias. Initially, American special forces returned to Iraq in 2014 to combat the Islamic State group alongside a multinational coalition. However, with the fall of the IS Caliphate in 2019, the strategic necessity for U.S. troops in the region has been called into question. 

Today, American forces continue to operate in Iraq, often in a support and advisory role. They continue to face dangerous attacks — more than 180 since October 2023 — by regional militias. In response to shifting regional dynamics, the United States and Iraqi governments agreed on a phased withdrawal of troops that has hundreds of U.S. troops leaving by September 2025 and the rest of them by January 2027.  

There are clear indicators that this withdrawal would benefit the lives and interests of Americans. Since the early 2000s, more than $8 trillion has been spent on wars, with nearly 7,000 American lives lost and more than 1 million veterans returning from combat with life-altering disabilities. Over that same period of time, the world has grown increasingly unstable. 

But what does this withdrawal mean for regional stability and U.S. security? Would a full withdrawal increase the risk of a resurgence of the Islamic State group or terrorist threats against the United States? 

We spoke with Will Walldorf, professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University and senior fellow at Defense Priorities, to explore these pressing questions and analyze whether the U.S. military presence in Iraq still serves a vital strategic purpose — or if it’s time for a full-scale disengagement. 

Is there a clear strategic reason U.S. forces are still in Iraq today? 

Walldorf: The reason U.S. special forces returned to Iraq — namely, to combat the Islamic State Caliphate — no longer exists. That means there is no good strategic reason for U.S. troops to be there today. This is especially the case given the exposure of those troops to attack from Iranian-backed militias inside Iraq (and Syria), the dangers of which have been on full display since the Hamas attack on Israel. U.S. bases and military installations in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan have come under rocket fire more than 180 times since the attacks in Israel.  

U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011, then returned in 2014 to provide support to a multilateral effort to fight ISIS. This coalition included partners from across the Middle East and Europe. On the ground inside Iraq, it was spearheaded by Iraqi security forces and the Peshmerga in Kurdistan, which is a Kurdish-majority, semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq. While U.S. special forces have worked closely with both in mostly a support and training role, they are often in direct combat. In the first half of 2024 alone, U.S. Central Command reported 137 partnered operations resulted in 30 ISIS operatives killed and 74 ISIS operatives detained. Since 2014, U.S. casualties have been relatively low for U.S. soldiers in these operations, but injuries (some serious) are common for U.S. troops.  

With the collapse of the ISIS Caliphate in 2019, the strategic justification for the U.S. military presence in Iraq largely evaporated. ISIS is not gone, but it’s now a shell of itself compared to 2014. ISIS lost the relatively vast swath of territory it controlled across northern Iraq and northern Syria at the height of its caliphate. ISIS fighters are still active in rural parts of northern and western Iraq, mostly with nighttime raids. Across 2024, the number of these attacks increased significantly, but this has not come with renewed territorial control for ISIS and in no way resembles the level of ISIS strength at the height of its caliphate.  

The reduced strategic justification for the U.S. troop presence today is also driven by the fact that there are other local forces willing and able to control what remains of ISIS in Iraq (and Syria) today. The Peshmerga remains committed to the cause and capable. Most importantly, Iraqi security forces are in a much stronger position than they were in 2014 when ISIS rose. This is one of the primary reasons that even amidst the rise of ISIS attacks in 2024, the Iraqi government has asked for U.S. forces to leave the country.  

As the Iraqi president has stated on numerous occasions over the last year alone, Iraq security forces are ready to carry the burden of containing ISIS. To that end, Iraqi forces are generally always in the lead in partnered operations with U.S. forces against ISIS targets, with the U.S. providing mostly technical and intelligence support. 

What is the deal that the American and Iraqi governments came to last year about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by January 2027? 

In November 2023, the Iraqi government asked the United States to withdraw forces. Negotiations began in January 2024, and in late September, an agreement was signed for a phased withdrawal by the end of 2026.  

In the first phase, troops at both al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and the Baghdad airport will be moved to Hareer base in Kurdistan. Most forces will be withdrawn from Hareer across 2026. It’s important to realize, though, that some unspecified number of forces will remain in Kurdistan and perhaps Iraq for counter-ISIS operations. So, what’s been agreed to is not a full withdrawal. 

Given the flexible nature of the deal and long horizon for execution, the deal could be amended as events unfold for U.S. troops to stay in more significant numbers than stipulated right now. There are some reports, for instance, that the Iraqi government has asked for a delay in the drawdown because of concerns over instability today in post-Assad Syria. The worry is some kind of a resurgence of ISIS there.

Would a full withdrawal from Iraq create more risk for America’s safety (i.e., lead to more terrorist attacks and threats tied to ISIS)? 

I don’t think so, especially given all the other actors both in Iraq and Syria with interests in controlling ISIS. Additionally, ISIS in Iraq and Syria has been reduced to a local, not global, terrorist threat. Its capacity for strikes beyond the Middle East is limited. ISIS-K strives for global reach and presents more of a challenge, but ISIS-K is not located in Iraq/Syria and operates pretty independently of the original branch in Iraq/Syria.  

In general, we’re a long way away from ISIS in Iraq getting back to the threat it was during the days of the caliphate. Again, there are a lot of local parties and states, most of whom partner with the U.S. on intelligence and interdiction, that are interested in preventing an ISIS resurgence across Iraq and Syria.  

ISIS had the element of surprise in its favor in 2014. That no longer exists today. Others can handle this, meaning the U.S. has a lot of flexibility to shift offshore, while staying engaged by cooperating with those local actors by providing mostly intelligence support. If things took an extreme turn for the worst (which again is not likely any time soon), Washington could use airstrikes or, worst-case scenario, send some special ops forces back in. But let me emphasize: We’re a long way from that.  

In general, it's a good time to complete the drawdown from Iraq. Proxy attacks against U.S. forces are way down. That creates a lot of space to make withdrawal easier. When our troops are under constant attack like they were through much of last year, it’s a much tougher lift at home for any president to pull down troops from a combat zone. Fortunately, we don’t have that duress at the moment.  

Especially in the wake of the New Orleans and Las Vegas terrorist attacks, how could the Trump administration continue to diminish the influence of ISIS and prevent future terrorist attacks at home and abroad?

For starters, there’s no evidence that ISIS had anything to do with these attacks, which means our troop presence in Iraq does little to nothing to prevent attacks like those in New Orleans and Las Vegas. These were homegrown attacks. From what we know, the attacker in the Las Vegas attack had no affiliation or commitment to ISIS. The New Orleans attacker was a U.S. citizen who had been radicalized online and pledged allegiance to ISIS.  

The New Orleans attack is basically a domestic security issue that is best handled not by continuing wars overseas but by good intelligence and interdiction work at home.  

We tend to think about force abroad as our first line of defense when it comes to counterterrorism. In some cases, force is necessary, of course, but in reality, intelligence and interdiction (in cooperation with partner governments and entities across the world) have become the real heartbeat of U.S. counterterrorism success over the last 15 years or more.  

There are many cases of successful counterterrorism like this that we don’t even know about since, for sensitive intelligence reasons, they never become public. But consider some of the successful cases that we do know about in the last year or so: Last year, the case of the bombing at the Taylor Swift concert in Vienna was foiled by great intelligence and interdiction work. Before that, another plot was foiled in Germany, and in September of last year, a radicalized resident of Canada was stopped at the U.S. border on his way to bomb a Jewish center in New York. The ISIS-K attacks in Moscow and Iran in 2023 could have likely been prevented if Tehran and Moscow had acted on very good intelligence about the attacks that Washington gave both of them. 

Sometimes, homegrown attackers unfortunately succeed. The attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas were tragic, and we should work diligently to prevent them, of course. The reality is that we tend to prevent these kinds of attacks far more often than not. We’ve become really good at intelligence, interdiction, and multilateral cooperation around terrorism since 9/11.  

We’ll never be perfect here; homegrown attacks will come. But the important thing is to keep refining those successful methods and not fall into the trap of obsessing about the use of force abroad as a solution to these problems. On the latter, it’s important to be very judicious, more judicious in fact than we currently are. Drawing down from Iraq is a really good step toward that judiciousness, leaning into ever more measured ways to manage terrorism that keep us from getting dragged into conflicts beyond our interests.  

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