Iran’s Revolutionary Guard celebrates US troop pullout from Iraq as first regional domino

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps celebrated the completion of the American military withdrawal from Iraq on Thursday, framing the departure as the opening move in what it predicts will become a broader US exit from the wider region.

In a statement marking the end of the withdrawal, the Revolutionary Guard described the pullout as signaling the liberation of West Asia from what it called the dominance of the “Great Satan,” a term Iranian officials have long used to refer to the United States. The force credited the departure to the will of the Iraqi people and to what it described as resistance and action taken by Iraq’s government, calling the outcome a historic victory. It called on Washington to withdraw from the broader region entirely and leave security matters in the hands of the people living there.

The Revolutionary Guard’s statement characterized the roughly two decade American military presence in Iraq as having now concluded, describing it as merely the first step toward a complete withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East.

The declaration followed confirmation from the US Defense Department on Wednesday that American and coalition forces had formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, with the orderly departure of remaining personnel and equipment from Erbil Air Base marking the close of the military mission. Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said the twelve year campaign succeeded in defeating the Islamic State group as an organized military force across Iraq and the wider region.

Baghdad and Washington agreed in September 2024 to wind down the coalition’s military mission in Iraq under a timetable running through the end of September 2026, shifting instead toward bilateral security arrangements between Iraq and individual coalition member states. The coalition itself formed under American leadership in 2014 after the Islamic State seized large swaths of territory across Iraq and Syria, providing Iraqi forces with air support, intelligence and training during years of fighting against the group. Iraq declared it had fully reclaimed territory lost to the militants in December 2017.

The current withdrawal closes out a US military presence in Iraq that began with the 2003 invasion that removed Saddam Hussein from power, a presence that briefly ended with a full troop withdrawal in 2011 before American forces returned in 2014 to help combat the Islamic State’s advance across the country.