On September 30, 2026, the last U.S.-led coalition troops departed Erbil air base in northern Iraq, ending the latest chapter of a military presence in the country that began with the 2003 invasion, briefly ended in 2011, and resumed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State. Baghdad celebrated, Washington claimed victory, and Iran-aligned factions rejoiced. In the Kurdistan Region, the response was alarm.
Each reaction reflects a different calculation on what Iraq becomes without the United States as referee, target, and security backstop. The withdrawal resolves one longstanding dispute over Iraqi sovereignty while bringing another to the fore: the gap between the state’s formal monopoly on force and its ability to exercise it. That question becomes more urgent eight months into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which has repeatedly entangled Iraq, especially the Kurdistan Region in a regional conflict, all while Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi seeks to bring armed groups under state control by June 30, 2027, which is a postponed date that was originally slated to coincide with the U.S. withdrawal.
From Withdrawal to Sovereignty
The departure followed a two-phase plan agreed to in 2024 by the Biden administration and then-Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, which President Trump held to as part of his pledge to end an “endless war.” By January 2026, coalition advisers had left federal Iraq, with troops remaining in Erbil to support operations in Syria. Despite the U.S. launching the war against Iran on February 28, al-Zaidi confirmed in July that the remaining U.S. troops would leave by the end of September.
Their departure removed a roughly 1,500-strong military footprint and the air defenses that accompanied it, although training and intelligence cooperation will continue. Baghdad marked the occasion with four “Sovereignty Days” of national holiday, underscoring its claim that the state, not foreign armies or factions, decides on issues of war and peace. At the UN General Assembly, al-Zaidi pledged that weapons would remain with constitutional institutions and that Iraq’s relationships with Western states would shift from military to economic cooperation.
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