Image by Mohammad Majid.

In U.S. political talk, Iraq is often treated as a “finished chapter.” The invasion is history, the occupation is history, and even the war against ISIS is presented as something largely completed. Yet in 2025, Iraqis are still living with the consequences of decisions made in Washington, and U.S. power in their country is not disappearing – it is simply changing shape.

In September 2024, the United States and Iraq announced that the U.S.-led coalition’s military mission would end by September 2025 and evolve into a bilateral security arrangement, with hundreds of troops expected to leave and most of the rest by the end of 2026. But that announcement was never a promise of full withdrawal. It was a plan to rebrand and resize the presence, not to end it.

By October 2025, the Pentagon confirmed that the mission was being “scaled back,” not closed. Troop levels are dropping from about 2,500 to under 2,000, and most U.S. personnel are being repositioned to the northern city of Erbil in the Kurdistan Region, while a smaller presence remains in Baghdad under the label of “security cooperation.” Combat may no longer be the official role, but foreign soldiers are still on Iraqi soil, shaping the country’s security architecture.

At the same time, Washington just opened the largest U.S. consulate in the world in Erbil – a massive $796 million compound spread over 50 acres. Official statements describe this as an investment in “a sovereign and stable Iraq.” For many observers, it also looks like a signal that the United States intends to entrench long-term economic and political influence in the north, even as troop numbers are trimmed elsewhere.

Iraqi leaders themselves have linked foreign troop presence to internal instability. Last month, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said that bringing all weapons under state control will not be possible as long as a U.S.-led coalition remains in the country, because some armed factions justify their existence as “resistance” to that foreign presence. In other words, continued deployment of foreign forces makes disarming militias harder, not easier.

For ordinary Iraqis, this is layered on top of decades of war, sanctions, occupation, and extremist violence. Many carry memories not only of local actors’ abuses, but also of U.S. airstrikes, night raids, and notorious scandals like Abu Ghraib. Human Rights Watch has documented how Iraqis who were tortured and abused in U.S.-run prisons are still waiting for any form of compensation or official redress, two decades after their suffering became public. Those individuals are not statistics; they are people trying to rebuild lives while the government that harmed them refuses even basic accountability.

U.S. influence in Iraq today is not limited to bases and advisors. It is also economic and political. Earlier this year, when drone attacks by Iran-aligned militias hit U.S.-linked oil installations in Iraqi Kurdistan, Washington responded by pressuring Baghdad to reopen a key oil export pipeline to Turkey that had been shut since 2023. According to Reuters reporting, that pressure included threats of sanctions against Iraqi officials until the deal favored U.S. energy interests and partners. Such episodes show a pattern: military vulnerability is used to justify ongoing presence, and that presence is then used to extract leverage over Iraq’s economic choices.

Iraqis deserve more than a shift from one form of foreign control to another. Ending formal “combat missions” while keeping troops, enormous diplomatic compounds, and economic pressure tools in place does not amount to real respect for Iraq’s sovereignty. A genuinely different approach from the United States would start with admitting the harm caused since 2003, offering concrete compensation and support to Iraqi survivors of U.S. abuses, and committing to a clear, time-bound end to military deployment.

It would also mean redirecting resources from bases and weapons toward reconstructing schools, hospitals, water systems, and trauma services in communities damaged by past wars. And it would mean engaging with Iraqi civil society – journalists, community organizers, women’s groups, youth movements – without trying to steer their politics.

Iraq has the right to shape its own future without foreign soldiers in the background and foreign governments pulling economic strings. As long as U.S. power in Iraq is only resized and rebranded instead of reduced and held accountable, the chapter that began with invasion remains open – not for policymakers in Washington, but for the people who still live with its consequences every day.

The post Iraq’s Sovereignty Cannot Grow While U.S. Power Only Changes Shape appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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