U.S. military officially leaves Iraq

0:00Chris Brown is in the news again, and that means that people are publicly relearning and re-litigating his history of violence toward women. Many of us are wanting to be protective of Black men and boys to the point that we're unwilling to hold them accountable for the things that they do to women and girls. Listen to NPR's Code Switch podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today on State of the World, the U.S. military officially leaves Iraq.

0:33You're listening to State of the World from NPR, a human perspective on global events. It's Wednesday, September 30th. I'm Christine Arismath. American forces formally ended their presence in Iraq with a low-key ceremony, an event largely symbolic as almost all U.S. troops have already left. It marks the end of an era, though, that began over 23 years ago with the shock and awe invasion of President Bush. Our correspondents have a closer look. Greg Myrie is in Washington, and Jane Araf is in Baghdad. They spoke to NPR's Sasha Pfeiffer on All Things Considered. Jane, since you are in Baghdad, would you describe the scene there today and how Iraq is framing this event?

1:18First, we have to remember this was the second withdrawal since 2003. In 2011, I and other journalists who had been embedded with U.S. forces on the front lines attended a ceremony. There was a flag lowering, commanders boarding military planes. There was a recognition of lives lost, of gains made, and all that had happened. Now, fast forward three years later, and American forces were back to help Iraq fight ISIS, and they've stayed since then. So today was different. This ceremony took place behind closed doors. There was no media allowed. The last of what had been about 1 ,500 U.S. troops based in Iraq's Kurdistan region, in fact, had already left before the deadline today.

2:04But, you know, after two decades that included an eight-year occupation, at least 200 ,000 Iraqi civilians killed, and more than 4 ,400 U.S. personnel dead, it was extremely understated for such a momentous event. Greg, the U.S. and Iraq fought their first war in 1991. You covered that war. Give us your sense of the U.S. military legacy in Iraq after all these years. Yeah, extremely mixed. I mean, it was often troubled, many painful setbacks, and really just fell far short of expectations. That first war in 1991 was very brief. It lasted just six weeks, and it went very well for the U.S. The U.S.

2:44drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. I think it created this notion that the U.S. could operate very effectively in the Middle East. The U.S. stayed a couple months and then left, and that was really the first U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. And it's been much more fraught and complicated since then. Successive presidents have wanted to leave Iraq, and this deal today was negotiated by President Biden two years ago. President Trump went ahead with the deal, and he said on True Social today this was a great day for America. And he added, quote, it's been a long time with very bad decision making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place.

3:21And Trump, of course, long a critic of U.S. wars in the Middle East, but he's launched a war in Iran that's still unresolved. Jane, the Iraqi government declared this day sovereignty day. The prime minister says it is a new phase of Iraq taking full responsibility for its security. How much is this actually a turning point? Well, we spoke today with the Iraqi former foreign minister, Hoshar Zabari, who negotiated the pullout of U.S. forces in 2011. And he told us it's an important development, but maybe not a pivotal one. The departure or the withdrawal of the coalition forces or the American forces doesn't mean the American influence has decreased.

4:03East, American political, financial, diplomatic influence will remain, maybe stronger. And one of those important levers is U.S. control over Iraq's currency. Oil revenue since 2003 has gone through the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. Greg, compared to when the war started, what would you say are the U.S. interests in Iraq today? Yeah, those earlier wars, the U.S. was acting very much against Saddam Hussein. They saw him as the main destabilizing force in the region. And Saddam was ousted, but all these years of American military action have clearly not achieved the goal of stabilizing the Middle East.

4:44Today, the U.S. really wants a more normal political and economic relationship with Iraq. You know, Iraq was the world's fifth leading oil producer, though that's been disrupted by the Iran war. The U.S. wants Iraq to be a stabilizing political force in the Middle East, wants Iraq to limit Iran's influence in the region. And so we'll be watching this pull out closely to see what happens in Iraq without the U.S. military presence. Jane, Greg mentioned the unresolved Iran war, and it's hard to talk about Iraq without talking about Iran. How does Iran see the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq? Well, definitely as a victory.

5:18The U.S. toppling of Saddam in 2003 opened the door for Iranian influence, and it's been growing militarily, economically, politically. we attended a rally today of Iran-backed militias who were celebrating the pullout. These are young men, some of them holding flags of some of the hardest-line militias, and they're chanting, my weapons drove out the occupiers. We asked the spokesman for one of the groups, the Nujaba movement, whether they would give up their weapons now that U.S. forces had left. And he said no, because they don't trust the U.S. Greg, does the U.S. pull out in Iraq say anything larger about the future role of the U.S.

6:03military in the Middle East? Yeah, Sasha, today's a perfect example of these cross currents we're seeing. U.S. troops are leaving Iraq, yet there's this ongoing war with Iran. It shows the U.S. can't seem to stay out of the Middle East. So the U.S. has dramatically expanded its Middle East military presence during these earlier Iraq wars. Now the debate is focused on whether the U.S. should maintain or scale back this presence.

6:32That's NPR's Greg Myrie in Washington with Jaina Raff in Baghdad. They spoke to NPR's Sasha Pfeiffer on All Things Considered. And that's the State of the World from NPR. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. Before Bernie Sanders or AOC, a man named Michael Harrington tried to market socialism to the American public. Tens of millions of Americans are poor, miserable, in body and in spirit. On NPR's ThruLine, how the founder of the DSA created a modern political movement. Listen to ThruLine in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Willem Dafoe is an open book.

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