Iran’s Dominoes Are Falling; Why Are We Pulling Back?

Iran’s rapidly weakening deck of cards in Syria and across the region provides an opportunity for the United States to push the momentum against Iran and its proxies. However, at this critical juncture, the United States is drawing down its regional troop presence, limiting its ability to effectively counter Iran’s regional aggression.

The Biden administration announced on September 27 that the current US-led military mission in Iraq will come to an end by September 2025, followed by US troops operating in some fashion in Iraq through 2026. Despite American officials’ claim that this move is not a withdrawal, it certainly bears all the hallmarks of one.

Key US facilities at Al-Asad Air Base and Baghdad International Airport will be shuttered within months. After 2026, few, if any, US troops would remain in the strategically vital country, at a time of growing regional escalation, impeding our ability to impact events on the ground in both Iraq and Syria.

The ramifications of departing Iraq will be significant — in Iraq and beyond.

A minimized US presence in Iraq would increase Iranian influence there, strengthen and embolden Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, and limit the United States’ ability to sustain forces in Syria. This would pave the way for Iran to accelerate its transfer of weapons, cash, and terror operatives to its proxies in Syria and Lebanon via Iraq. Not only might this save Bashar al-Asad in Syria, but it could also pave the way for Hezbollah — currently on its back heels — to be rearmed and revitalized.

In Iraq, the US presence has had a cooling effect on Iran’s ring of fire proxy strategy. By comparison, Iran has provided an abundance of sophisticated ballistic missiles to its Houthi proxies in Yemen, enabling them to wreak havoc on global shipping in the Red Sea. Buffeted by America’s presence in Iraq, though, Iran has provided only short-range rockets and drones to its Iraq-based terror proxies and, fearing reprisals, has privately urged caution to avoid provoking Washington.

Without this security buffer, Iran’s ability to expand its footprint in Iraq will only grow — which is likely why some Iraqi officials reportedly oppose a US withdrawal.

A reduced US force posture in Iraq would also jeopardize America’s presence in Syria — providing a major boon to Tehran. An Iraq draw-down would impede the ability to sustain the nearly 1,000 US service members in the northeast of Syria, since they depend on access via Iraq for basic logistics such as food and fuel. American troops in Iraq also serve to retaliate against attacks on US forces in Syria.

A draw-down in Iraq would, therefore, likely lead to a withdrawal from Syria as well — creating further vacuums for Iran to exploit. At least one US base in eastern Syria is reportedly near a key Iranian-Hezbollah smuggling axis across the Syria-Iraq border. Another US base, Al-Tanf, blocks what would otherwise be the shortest and fastest land smuggling route from Iran to Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon.

With a greater footprint in Iraq and freer access to Syria, Iran could beat back the current threat to Assad’s hold on power, and expand its weapons shipments to Hezbollah, as it has already sought to do in recent days. A Hezbollah rejuvenated by newfound arms pipelines risks scaling back the considerable Israeli successes against the terror group, enabling it to again threaten Israel and other US partners.

Regardless of the merits of a troop scale-down in Iraq, timing matters. The message such a move would send to both friends and allies, amid a staggering 207 Iran-backed attacks on US personnel in the region in the last year alone, would itself be counterproductive to America’s interests. Withdrawing from Iraq at a time of spiraling regional escalation risks sending a message to Iran that imposing sufficient costs on the United States will result in concessions.

This signal would only ring louder in Tehran, given that Iran’s proxy network used Iraq as a staging ground to launch the deadliest attack on American soldiers in the region in years. In January, an Iraq-based Iranian proxy used an Iranian-made drone to kill three US servicemembers and injure more than 30 troops stationed in Jordan along the Iraqi border.

Withdrawal from Iraq at a time of intensifying regional conflict, particularly in neighboring Syria, would also send a disheartening message to our allies and partners. Without American leadership and assets, the nearly 80 countries participating in the US-led counter-ISIL mission in Iraq would be significantly hamstrung, just as ISIL is showing signs of resurgence. In addition, Iranian proxies in Iraq have also directly attacked Israel over 40 times this year — an escalating threat to a key US partner, which demands more, not less, attention and engagement.

Past US withdrawals attest to the problems that come with timeline-based, rather than conditions-based, withdrawals.

As part of the 2008 US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, the United States committed to withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. In the following months, insurgent violence escalated across the country, and within three years, the rise of the Islamic State led to US troops returning to Iraq.

In Afghanistan, against the advice of a bipartisan Congressionally-appointed panel and top US military leaders, the administration pursued a timeline-based withdrawal, which led to the Taliban seizing control of the country in short order. As then-head of US Central Command, General Frank McKenzie, USMC (ret.), said in a recent Jewish Institute for National Security of America webinar, the US decision to pursue a timeline-based withdrawal was at the heart of the botched pull-out.

Scaling down America’s presence in Iraq at the current moment will telegraph to Iran and other adversaries worldwide that the United States can be pushed out when attacked, inviting more attempts.

Lt Gen Richard Mills, USMC (ret.) served as Commander of the First Marine Division, Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, and Commander of NATO’s Regional Command Southwest in Afghanistan. He was a participant with the 2019 Generals and Admirals Program with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

Yoni Tobin is a Policy Analyst at JINSA.

Originally Published in the Algemeiner.