Iraq between Occupation and Sovereignty, as US Troops Depart
Tulsa, OK (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – “It’s ironic how I am writing you an email when you taught me how to write one!… You played a huge role in my learning process. Many teachers did not understand how my brain works…you saw me struggle with SAT words and u told me to make comics and write stories. I feel like the way you knew my strength and helped me incorporate it with my learning process was amazing!… I was very young and traumatized from war so I could not express myself, only through art, and you were very supportive.”
The above is from a 2025 email exchange with Lara*, a Kurdish woman I taught at an international school in Erbil, northern Iraq from 2011 to 2013. Back then, she was a sophomore, navigating the complexities of puberty in a patriarchal and war-scarred landscape.
I have not lived a war-interrupted life because when my refugee father was seeking safety, security, and opportunity post-World War II, the US held its door open, allowing him in. My father’s experience has subconsciously shaped my life: I spent 15 years teaching in conflict/post-conflict/developing contexts, eight of which were in northern Iraq, from where US forces are scheduled to withdraw by September 30 of this year. Many forces have already left, their departure spurred on by Iranian attacks. If all US forces leave Iraq by September 30, this will be the first time since 2003 that Iraq has no conventional US military presence.
US withdrawal is a two-edged sword. In the Kurdish region, the US Consulate in Erbil and the joint training facilities near the Erbil International Airport have been prime targets during the current war with Iran. The US Patriot defense systems protect these targets and the nearby civilian infrastructure and facilities. Since February 28, US and coalition air defenses have defended the Kurdish region from more than 900 Iranian and Iraqi drone and missile attacks. Kurdistan Democratic Party member Idris Shaaban worries that a complete US withdrawal from the Kurdish region may leave it more vulnerable to attacks by “armed factions, Iran, and terrorist organizations.”
In January 2026, American forces withdrew entirely from the Ain al-Asad Air Base in the Anbar province, leaving the Iraqi military in complete control of the facilities and marking a transition in security sovereignty. My former student Hassan* remembers the US forces entering his hometown of Heet with toys, footballs, books, and food. They set up in the Ain al-Asad Airbase, the Lion’s Base.
Meanwhile, the resistance planted bombs at night for the US-led forces and collected them at dawn so the public wouldn’t get hurt. The resistance beheaded or shot anyone who worked with the Americans. They would videotape their operations and leave them on discs around the city as a warning. Some mornings Hassan awoke to streets littered with discs, other mornings to streets scattered with dead bodies.
In 2004, the house-to-house searches began. At first, the soldiers were friendly. They spoke English with Hassan’s father, took pictures with family members, removed their gloves to shake hands.
After Saddam Hussein was deposed, things changed.
Eleven-year-old Hassan sat facing a wall in his family’s compound in the Anbar province. Alongside Hassan were his two older brothers, his father, some uncles, and a grandfather, all in a row, like birds on a line. Insect song trailed through the open front door only to be hushed by the strange sounds a man in a US military uniform made. A translator sitting next to Hassan magicked the foreign words into a question. “What do you know about the bombs on the street?”
No one had the answer.
The translator didn’t need to interpret Uniform Man’s punches. Violence was the same in any language.
“Shut up, you fat kid,” the US soldier yelled as he took a crying Hassan into another part of the house to be interrogated. Again, the soldier asked Hassan what he knew about the bomb that had been planted on a street one hundred meters from Hassan’s house in Heet.
Hassan thought this was the moment to be brave. “If you want information, come get it yourself.”
Smothering a smile, the translator turned Hamza’s words into something else.
The US officer threatened Hassan with prison if he didn’t tell.
“If you do that,” Hassan reasoned, “you will be the terrorist.”
One night, Hassan and his family heard the neighbors screaming as the search unit kicked in their door. Hassan’s father opened the door and waited.
Would you go to bed at night with your door unlocked or ajar? This became a habit in Heet.
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Eric Pahon, a Broadcast Journalist (46R), conducting ENG while on a patrol in w:Iraq, 2006. Public Domain. Via Picryl
Since the US forces left the Ain al-Asad Airbase, occupation and sovereignty have slugged it out with no real winner. In March, there were attacks on a military base housing Iraq’s regular army and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a paramilitary group which includes some Iran-aligned brigades, in western Anbar province. Other cross border and proxy escalations further destabilize the region, for which Iraq blames both the US and Iran.
Meanwhile, civilians pay the price. Today, Hassan lives in Baghdad, near the Green Zone. He is a tech entrepreneur and will soon be married. During March’s escalation, Hassan watched as US citizens were evacuated from areas around the Green Zone, and he was left to manage on his own.
The US has been engaged in Iraq for most of Hassan and Lara’s lives. Even if US forces fully withdraw, the consequences of the US decision to invade their country will reverberate long after the last US boot leaves the ground.
*Not their real names