The U.S. military announced Wednesday that it had completed the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, concluding a 12-year mission to combat the Islamic State group and prompting President Donald Trump to extol the cessation of “a very expensive excursion into Hell.”

The final contingent of American forces withdrew from an airbase in northern Iraq, in accordance with an accord concluded between Baghdad and Washington.

In a social media post, Trump characterized the withdrawal by a Sept. 30 deadline as “orderly.”

Appearing shortly thereafter at a White House event celebrating Hispanics, he discoursed at length upon the withdrawal, remarking, “It’s been a long time with very bad decision making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place.

It was a quagmire.

For many, many years it lasted.

But soon that part of history will be over.”

He characterized the shift as a triumph for the United States and Iraq, and as an augury of victory over the Islamic State group.

The withdrawal, brokered two years prior, unfolds against the backdrop of the protracted hostilities between the United States and Iran—a conflict that has, at intervals, spilled over into Iraqi territory, with Iran-aligned militias directing fire upon U.S. troops and the United States launching strikes against the groups’ strongholds.

Trump’s remarks coincided with the fact that his own decision earlier this year to initiate the war with Iran has drawn comparisons to the Iraq war on account of its ill-defined mission as it approaches its seventh month.

Speaking at the White House, Trump drew that comparison, contending both that his one-day military operation in Venezuela earlier this year to seize now former President Nicolás Maduro and the war with Iran compared favorably, having consumed far less time and entailed fewer deaths among U.S. troops.

In recent years, Washington has endeavored to reorient its strategic focus away from the Middle East and toward Asia, yet this purported pivot has proven anything but consistent, with the Pentagon oscillating between curtailing its Mideast footprint and subsequently finding itself embroiled in fresh conflicts — not least the ongoing war in Iran.

Baghdad heralded the conclusion of the U.S. mission as emblematic of the nation's burgeoning strength and sovereignty.

The withdrawal likewise elicited approbation from Iran-aligned factions, yet it engendered apprehension among certain other Iraqis—particularly within the Kurdish region—where many harbour fears of an Islamic State resurgence, as well as of further assaults by Iran-linked groups potentially galvanised by the departure of U.S. forces.

Meanwhile, uncertainties persist regarding the trajectory of the Iraqi militias, which the Baghdad government has endeavoured to disarm, albeit with scant success thus far.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced that U.S. troops and equipment had effected an “orderly departure” from the air base situated in Irbil, within northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

“This milestone constitutes a testament to the efficacy of a 12-year campaign that vanquished ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and throughout the region,” he said.

“It likewise signifies a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security endeavor undergirded by a more conventional bilateral security relationship.”

He further remarked that the U.S. military “will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, having presided over the handover ceremony, characterised the U.S. withdrawal as the dawn of a “new phase, one defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends.”

He asserted that Iraqi security forces would persist in their campaign against IS, and that the government would guarantee that non-state groups no longer retain arms.

In his remarks on Wednesday, Trump heaped effusive encomiums upon al-Zaidi, extolling him as “outstanding,” a “fantastic guy, friend of mine,” and one who “will hopefully be able to handle things very well.”

He likewise appeared intent on claiming a measure of credit for al-Zaidi’s leadership, asserting that the Iraqi leader was “running for election” and “wasn’t given even a chance and I endorsed him and politicked for him a little bit, and he ended up winning in a virtual landslide.”

Al-Zaidi, though absent from the ballot, was nonetheless elevated to the premiership when Iraq's preeminent parliamentary bloc put him forward as its nominee, following weeks of intramural deliberation among its constituent parties and Trump's public declaration of his opposition to the coalition's prior selection.

In 2003, U.S. troops invaded Iraq with the objective of toppling Saddam Hussein.

Their withdrawal materialized in 2011, yet a mere three years thereafter, Iraqi authorities proffered an invitation to a scaled-down U.S.-led mission to combat the Islamic State group, which had wrought havoc across Iraq, seizing vast tracts of territory.

With the extremist group having been reduced to a smattering of sleeper cells, Washington and Baghdad concurred in 2024 on winding the mission down.

U.S. troops withdrew from bases across most of Iraq last year, yet retained a modest presence numbering in the hundreds in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region.

Bases there have been subjected to recurrent attacks since the U.S. and Israel initiated their war against Iran on Feb. 28.

Iran-backed Iraqi militias have likewise coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi rebels in mounting attacks on Saudi Arabia.

The Iraqi government initially conditioned the Sept. 30 deadline for U.S. withdrawal upon the disarmament of non-state armed groups by that same date.

Whereas a smattering of comparatively inconsequential militias have consented to surrender their armaments, formidable factions aligned with Iran have either spurned the very notion or stipulated preconditions for disarmament that the government would be exceedingly unlikely to satisfy.

Al-Zaidi has since rescinded the deadline.

He told The New York Times earlier this month that the deadline for militia disarmament has been postponed until June 2027.

The ramifications of the U.S. withdrawal may not manifest immediately, particularly given that the U.S. military footprint had already been diminished.

Yet officials in Iraq's Kurdish region have voiced apprehension regarding the departure, and in particular the dismantling of U.S. air defense systems.

The Peshmerga Ministry of the Kurdish regional government has stated that, throughout the recent U.S.-Iran conflict, the Kurdish region sustained in excess of 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile strikes.

“The United States’ withdrawal from the Kurdistan Region, occurring amidst these intricate regional circumstances and unaccompanied by the provision of a defense system, constitutes a matter of grave concern,” the statement said.

Iran-aligned factions in Iraq, in the interim, have exulted over the American withdrawal.

"The ousting of the vanquished occupation forces from the land of Iraq constitutes the inception of full sovereignty," Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official affiliated with the formidable Kataib Hezbollah militia, declared in a statement.

He appended a caveat to al-Zaidi and his government, admonishing them against executing American designs, and menacing that “any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means.”

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella coalition of Iran-aligned militias, declared in a statement that negotiations with the government concerning the regulation of weapons had failed to yield an agreement, asserting that it was “not bound by any timeline or agreement” promulgated by the government or any political entity.

The group further stated that it remains amenable to “any dialogue that guarantees Iraq’s sovereignty and dignity.”