Iraqis Fear That Trump’s America Will Depart Once and For All
Baghdad has good reason to be concerned about the trajectory of the U.S.-Iraq relationship.
A month into his second term, President Donald Trump’s disruptive approach to U.S. foreign policy is causing anxiety among U.S. allies. Europe is worried about Washington’s retreat from NATO; Ukraine is alarmed with the administration’s reversal on the war and embrace of Vladimir Putin; and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt are troubled by Trump’s initiative to “own” Gaza. Another U.S. partner deeply concerned about what the Trump administration will do next is Iraq.
For more than twenty years, the United States has invested significant blood and treasure in Mesopotamia. Today, some 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, and last year, Washington provided $430 million in military and economic assistance to the state. During his first term, Trump repeatedly pledged to end America’s “forever wars.” He was not successful but seems more determined to repatriate soldiers in his second mandate. With the Biden administration’s August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq today is the grandfather of these U.S. military deployments. Not surprisingly, Iraqis fear they are now on the U.S. retrenchment shortlist.
During a recent trip to Baghdad, I met with a series of senior Iraqi government officials. Despite the current period of unprecedented calm in Iraq, almost uniformly the officials were worried. U.S.-Iraqi relations were especially fraught during Trump’s last presidency, and perceptions that Baghdad remains beholden to Tehran predominate in Washington, including in MAGA circles. In short, Baghdad has good reason to be concerned about the trajectory of the bilateral relationship.
Successive Iraqi governments have been ambivalent about the U.S. military presence. American forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and were stationed in Iraq until 2011, when then-President Barack Obama withdrew U.S. troops at Baghdad’s request. After the Islamic State (ISIS) conquered much of Iraq in 2014, Baghdad beseeched U.S. forces to return; they did, and they led an international coalition that defeated the group in 2019.
No good deed goes unpunished. Ever since the defeat of ISIS and the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias have been targeting U.S. troops and diplomats in an effort to expel U.S. forces from Iraq. This campaign culminated in a Hashd-sponsored attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in December 2019, during which the Government of Iraq was missing in action, neglecting to fulfill its Geneva Convention obligation to protect American diplomats. Days later, Trump ordered the killing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) chief Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport. Iraq issued an arrest warrant for Trump in the Soleimani matter, and assaults on U.S. personnel continued.
The U.S. deployment in Iraq is slated to end shortly. During the Biden administration, Baghdad and Washington agreed to a phased U.S. troop withdrawal by the end of 2026. Yet regime change in Damascus and the Assad regime’s replacement with an Islamist government led by a former ISIS member has prompted buyer’s remorse in Baghdad. Fearing an ISIS resurgence in Syria and Iraq, Baghdad now wants to extend the U.S. departure timeline.
The Iraqi government understands it will be difficult to convince Washington to stay. The Trump administration has already frozen much of its foreign assistance, and has pledged to downsize the U.S. diplomatic corps. No doubt, Trump still recalls the incessant assaults on American personnel during his first term, attacks that led then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to close the U.S. consulate in Basra and threaten to shutter the embassy in Baghdad. Indeed, the risk was so severe that in the summer of 2020, the administration deployed a Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM) system at the facility, the only embassy in the world to deploy a system more routinely found at forward Marine operating bases in hostile territory.
Iraqi prime minister Mohamed Shia Sudani is also somewhat of a lightning rod for Washington. Sudani presides over a government led by the Iranian-backed Coordination Framework, a coalition that counts the Hashd militias among its leading members, including Asa’ib Ahl al Haq (AAH), a U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). In 2022, his government capitalized the Muhandis Company, an engineering and construction firm owned and operated by the Hashd, which secures millions in contracts from the Iraqi government. Baghdad likewise continues to pay the salaries of these Iranian-backed militias and FTOs.
Against all odds, Baghdad hopes to preserve military, economic, and diplomatic engagement with Washington. In recent months, Sudani has sought to improve ties with the United States, in part by cleaning up Iraq’s banking sector, which has long served as a cash conduit for Tehran. Iraqi officials say the U.S. Treasury Department is pleased with the Central Bank’s reforms of the banking sector, and its willingness to ban local financial institutions—thirteen over the last fourteen months—from engaging in U.S. dollar transactions. Skeptics say that such banks are avoiding real repercussions by lawyering up in Washington, while dollar diversion simply moves to new venues such as electronic payment cards that withdraw dollars in huge numbers of small transactions.
To further shore up ties to the new administration, Iraq’s judiciary is canceling the arrest warrant against President Trump. The Government is also playing an active role in negotiating the release of Israeli-Russian US resident Elizabeth Tsurkov, kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023 by Katai’b Hezbollah (KH). KH is a Hashd militia designated by Washington as an FTO in 2009. It is also, regrettably, a member of Sudani’s Coordination Framework governing coalition.
At home and in Washington, the Hashd militias constitute Sudani’s biggest challenge. Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, these militias have conducted over 100 strikes on U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. In October and November 2024 alone, these groups attacked Israel with drones and cruise missiles on nearly 150 occasions. Lately, however, these groups have gone largely silent. Indeed, U.S. troops and diplomats in Iraq have not been targeted by the militias in nearly six months.
Sudani attributes the hiatus in Hashd activities to heightened security measures and a crackdown on the groups imposed by his administration. While the premier claims to have interdicted militia attacks on U.S. personnel, reporting on these events is sparse. Still, in 2023 Sudani’s government arrested four Hashd members and an IRGC officer for the killing, a year earlier, of American aid worker Stephen Troell in Baghdad. And despite a reported request from Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian for his release, the IRGC officer remains behind bars. (Although some analysts believe the judiciary—rather than the government—is responsible for the Iranian officer’s continued detention.)
While Sudani takes credit, it’s not clear the let-up in Hashd attacks is a result of official Iraqi actions. More likely, the Hashd relented because it was becoming increasingly clear that after withstanding months of attacks, the Israelis were poised to strike militia targets in Iraq. To wit, this past November, Israel sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council president lamenting the frequent Hashd attacks, noting that the Jewish State had a right to self-defense. Since then, Iraqi militias have not launched a single missile or drone toward Israel.
Sudani’s efforts aside, maintaining U.S. engagement in Iraq is going to be an uphill battle. Already, with the resumption of the maximum pressure campaign, the administration has canceled the controversial and perennial waivers allowing Iraq to purchase Iranian gas. And United States Central Command funding, which underwrites much of the military deployment, is on the chopping block. Pressuring Iran to reengage in nuclear negotiations is a priority for Trump, but it’s doubtful that the administration will see robust engagement in Iraq as an important element of this strategy. After all, China is an even bigger priority, but Washington recently announced it will be cutting diplomatic personnel in the Middle Kingdom by 10 percent.
Just a month into the Trump administration, reductions in U.S. military, financial, and diplomatic commitments in the Middle East appear increasingly inevitable. Preparations for a withdrawal of the small, but effective U.S. counter-ISIS military contingent in Syria are reportedly underway, and Iraq could be next.
Isolationist instincts aside, the Trump administration’s Iran strategy explicitly identifies Iraq as a priority. According to the National Security Presidential Memorandum of February 4, 2025, the United States is committed to preventing Iran from using the Iraqi financial system to evade sanctions. Iraq is also critical for the “denial of freedom of movement or safe haven” to the IRGC and Iran’s terrorist proxies such as the Hashd.
Despite the challenges and frustrations, as Washington resumes its maximum pressure campaign on Iran, it would be ill-advised to quit Iraq. U.S. financial and diplomatic contacts with Baghdad have proven invaluable in curtailing one of Tehran’s principal sources of foreign currency. In addition to keeping ISIS in check, the U.S. military deployment encourages and reassures Iraqi politicians who seek to contest Iranian influence in the state. Ongoing U.S. military assistance likewise provides Washington with leverage to oppose increased Hashd dominion over Baghdad. Like it or not, effectively exerting pressure on Iran is impracticable absent persistent and robust U.S. engagement with Iraq.
About the author: David Schenker
David Schenker is the Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics.
Image: DVIDS.