After US exit, Iran gains space in Iraq and a harder balancing act
For Iran, the easier part may have been getting Washington out, but it may now have to struggle turning the absence into durable influence and reviving its allied militias without provoking instability.
TEHRAN — Iran’s top regional military commander wasted little time celebrating the US departure from Iraq. Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, described the pull-out as a "humiliating removal," crediting Iraqi militias with forcing Washington out.
Speaking Thursday at a Tehran event commemorating slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Qaani insisted that the remaining American presence will also disappear. "America must be expelled from Iraq, both from its land and from its sky," he said, according to state-run Tasnim News Agency.
Tehran is not treating the end of the US military mission simply as an Iraqi sovereignty issue. It sees the withdrawal as part of a deeper regional contest in which the United States has been under sustained pressure from Iran and its allied armed groups.
And the timing makes the symbolism particularly important. The US withdrawal was completed Sept. 30, ending the Iraq-based military mission of Operation Inherent Resolve after more than 12 years. But it came following a devastating year of war involving Iran, Israel and the United States, during which Tehran's regional network was decimated, its military capabilities severely hit and its ability to project power across the Middle East falling under unprecedented pressure.
