Last American troops leave Iraq after 23 years as Iran celebrates

The last American troops in Iraq are gone. On September 30, U.S. and coalition forces completed their withdrawal from the remaining bases in the country, formally concluding Operation Inherent Resolve and ending a military presence that lasted 23 years.

The departure had been agreed in 2024 under President Joe Biden and was carried out by the Trump administration, even as the United States wages war against Iran next door. Pentagon officials described an orderly departure from Erbil Air Base in the Kurdish north. Baghdad marked the occasion by declaring four days of national holiday, September 30 to October 3, under the name Sovereignty Days.

In human terms, the cost was staggering: 4,500 Americans died in Iraq, the biggest American war of this century, alongside hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Tehran did not mourn. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps called the withdrawal a historic victory for what it calls the Resistance Front, with commander Esmail Qaani declaring the Americans expelled and describing it as a prelude to driving U.S. forces from the rest of the region. Abu Mojtaba al-Yasiri, a commander in the Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, called it a crushing defeat for the American project. The IRGC went further, publicly urging Americans to vote out Donald Trump's allies in Congress.

Not everyone in Iraq celebrated. Iraqi security experts warned the pullout could hand Tehran and its militia allies free rein. In the Kurdish region, where memories of the Islamic State's rampage are fresh, many feared the withdrawal gives both Iran-linked groups and a resurgent ISIS room to move.

There is a pattern here that Americans have now watched three times in living memory: Saigon in 1975, Kabul in 2021, and now Baghdad. Each time the debate afterward is the same — whether leaving was the mistake, or whether staying forever was. What is not debatable is who celebrated this time. It was Tehran.