BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Iraq wants a quick and orderly negotiated exit of U.S-led military forces from its soil but has not set a deadline, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said, describing their presence as destabilizing amid regional spillover from the Gaza war.
Longstanding calls by popular resistance factions for the U.S-led coalition’s departure have gained steam after a series of U.S. strikes on resistance forces that are also part of Iraq’s formal security forces.
Those strikes have raised fears that Iraq could once again become a theater for regional conflict.
“There is a need to reorganize this relationship so that it is not a target or justification for any party, internal or foreign, to tamper with stability in Iraq and the region,” Sudani told Reuters in an interview in Baghdad.
Giving the first details of his thinking about the future of the coalition since his Jan. 5 announcement that Iraq would begin the process of closing it down, Sudani said the exit should be negotiated under “a process of understanding and dialogue”.
“Let’s agree on a time frame (for the occupation forces’ exit) that is, honestly, quick, so that they don’t remain long and the attacks keep happening,” he said, noting that only an end to the occupying regime’s war on Gaza would stop the risk of regional escalation.
“This (end of the Gaza war) is the only solution. Otherwise, we will see more expansion of the arena of conflict in a sensitive region for the world that holds much of its energy supply,” Sudani said.
The Pentagon on Monday said it had no plans to withdraw U.S. troops.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, has been among the fiercest critics of the Zionist regime’s Gaza carnage, describing the mass killing and displacement of Palestinian civilians as a textbook case of genocide.
U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq and toppled former leader Saddam Hussein in 2003, withdrawing in 2011 but then returning in 2014 to allegedly fight Daesh as part of a so-called international coalition. The U.S. currently has some 2,500 troops in Iraq.
Calls for the coalition’s withdrawal have been around for years and, so far, little has changed. Iraq’s parliament in 2020 voted for its departure days after the U.S. assassinated top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and a senior Iraqi militant commander in a strike outside Baghdad airport.
The next year, the U.S. announced the end of its combat mission in Iraq and a shift to advising and assisting Iraqi security forces, a move that changed little on the ground.
Iraq’s anti-terror group Kata’ib Hezbollah has underscored the unity of the resistance front in the face of U.S.-Israeli plots in West Asia, warning against any attacks on Yemen, Lebanon and other Muslim countries across the region.
Jafar al-Hussaini, spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah movement, made the remark in an interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network on Tuesday as he pointed to the enhanced unity and cohesion among the Axis of Resistance in the wake of October 7 Operation al-Aqsa Storm, the largest military operation by Palestinian resistance groups against Israel in decades.
“After the al-Aqsa Storm, the Zionist-American enemy will no longer be able to fight alone against a country or a group. The Axis of Resistance is very coherent and has a clear vision and a clear role,” Hussaini said.
“If the enemy thinks of any foolishness against Lebanon, the Iraqis will be present on the field in numbers and equipment,” he added. “We will not allow Israel or others to attack any country from the Axis of Resistance or Islamic countries. In case of any attack on Yemen, the attacks on Americans and their allies will be unlimited.”
Referring to the months-long resistance of Palestinians against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah warned that the anti-terror Iraqi group would continue with its strikes on the occupied territories.