IRGC Says US Withdrawal from Iraq Marks Beginning of Wider Exit from West Asia

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the completion of the US military withdrawal from Iraq marks the beginning of the eventual removal of American forces from West Asia and the wider Muslim world.

In a statement issued on Thursday, October 1, the IRGC said the withdrawal came one day after the United States formally completed the removal of its troops from Iraq, ending more than two decades of American military presence in the country.

The Iranian military force described the withdrawal as a result of Iraq’s determination to defend its sovereignty, the activities of resistance groups, popular support and measures taken by the Iraqi government.

The IRGC said the development demonstrated that national determination could challenge the influence of major foreign powers.

It also congratulated the Iraqi people, resistance groups and what it described as fighters across the Muslim world, calling the withdrawal a historic development.

The IRGC further said the departure of US forces represented an initial step toward what it described as accountability for the deaths of Iraqi and Iranian figures, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, who were killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad in January 2020.

According to the IRGC, the United States should leave the region and allow regional countries to manage their own security. It argued that the long-term US military presence had failed to bring stability and had instead contributed to insecurity and conflict.

The force also called on Iraq’s government, people and resistance groups to remain vigilant against possible attempts to create instability following the US withdrawal.

The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s government. US-led coalition forces withdrew in 2011 but returned in 2014 following the territorial expansion of Daesh, which Washington cited as the reason for renewed military operations in Iraq.

The IRGC said Iraq’s future should be shaped through national unity and greater independence from foreign influence.

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