Light Footprint, Heavy Stakes: The Case for Staying Engaged in Iraq
On December 27, 2019, a U.S. forward operating base in Kirkuk, Iraq—K1 Air Base—was struck by 32 Katyusha 107mm rockets launched by Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iranian-aligned Shia militia group. A contractor who served as an interpreter for a SEAL platoon deployed to K1, Nawres Hamid—a proud father and a proud American of Iraqi ethnicity—was tragically killed in the attack.
Iranian militias conducted more than a dozen attacks on U.S. bases in the months preceding the K1 attack, but this attack was the first of its magnitude and was clearly intended to inflict casualties. Then CENTCOM Commander General Frank McKenzie Jr. later wrote that this attack “was a game-changer, and it was obvious to me that we would be responding.”
The U.S. did respond, and with force, leading to a back-and-forth escalation between the U.S. and Iran that resulted in the killing of Iran’s notorious Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and an Iranian ballistic missile attack targeting U.S. military bases in Iraq.
When the president delivered his speech following the missile attack, the SEALs at K1 gathered around the TV in their Tactical Operations Center (TOC)—still scarred from the rocket attack—to find out if what began at K1 would catapult the U.S. towards a new military campaign against Iran, with them as the war’s first participants.
I served as the intelligence officer for that SEAL platoon at K1. While the president’s speech ushered in a period of de-escalation, I will always remember the increasing awareness of being vulnerable at a tactical level to the strategic decisions made by those in Washington and Tehran.
I also remember asking myself the same questions many U.S. servicemembers in Iraq are surely asking to this day: Why are we still here? Is it worth it? With tensions now spiking to levels not seen since those volatile days in early 2020, the answers matter more than ever. This essay argues that it is worth it—if we’re smart about how we stay. The United States can and should maintain a modest, sustained presence in Iraq, including the 2,500 troops currently in country. Doing so is essential to preserving regional stability, checking adversarial influence, and avoiding the kind of costly reintervention that history warns us against.
From Shock and Awe to the Present
The collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 following the U.S. Shock and Awe invasion marked the beginning of one of the most ambitious—and costly—nation-building efforts in American history. The U.S.-led invasion quickly toppled a brutal dictatorship, but what followed was a series of cascading failures. The Coalition Provisional Authority’s sweeping de-Ba’athification policies and the disbanding of the Iraqi Army gutted the state’s bureaucracy and security forces, sending thousands of young, armed men home without jobs. Widespread looting went unchecked. Iraq’s borders were left porous, leading to an influx of foreign jihadists. The initial absence of basic law and order—combined with a lack of coherent planning—lit the fuse for a years-long cycle of sectarian violence. Meanwhile, Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exploited the security vacuum to sow distrust against the U.S. and Iraqi Sunnis.
The 2007 U.S. troop “surge” helped temporarily suppress insurgent activity and opened space for limited political reconciliation. But the gains were never institutionalized. When U.S. forces withdrew in 2011, Iraqi politics remained brittle and Iraqi forces—with the notable exception of special operations units—lacked a strong will to fight. Then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s increasingly sectarian and authoritarian rule marginalized Sunnis and deepened the country’s divisions. Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s public signaling of a full withdrawal—combined with diplomatic disengagement and apologies for U.S. power—encouraged adversaries to simply wait the U.S. out.
By 2014, Iraq was unraveling. ISIL stormed across the Syrian border and seized vast swaths of Iraqi territory. The U.S. returned to Iraq in an advisory and counterterrorism role, working with Iraqi and Kurdish forces to defeat the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate. By the time I deployed to K1 in 2019 I saw a country that had traded one form of instability for another. While ISIL no longer held ground (those we targeted mostly lived in caves and wadis), Iranian-backed militias were expanding their reach—sometimes with more influence than the Iraqi government itself.
Today, Iraq has a nominally elected government under Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, but real authority remains fragmented. Popular Mobilization Forces operate semi-autonomously under Iranian influence, not Baghdad’s command. Attempts to integrate these militias under state control are ongoing, but such efforts appear more symbolic than structural.
The state’s weaknesses extend beyond politics and security. Oil revenues still underwrite ~90% of the national budget, but chronic corruption siphons funds meant for reconstruction and services. Corruption remains endemic, youth unemployment is dangerously high, and basic services like electricity, clean water, and healthcare are erratic at best. Americans would be shocked to see the burn pits and the lack of public services we witnessed in places like Kirkuk. Yet, despite the hardships endured, in 2024, more than half of Iraqis believed the country was on the right track for the first time since 2004, an indication of renewed optimism and progress.
The Threat of an Unstable Iraq
Try as the U.S. might to actualize its pivot to the Indo-Pacific and focus on strategic competition with China, the gravitational pull of the Middle East continues to shape Department of Defense priorities and capture significant public attention, as exemplified by the recent 12-Day War. Similarly, hostilities in Gaza and Lebanon, Houthi attacks on maritime shipping, and the post-Assad reemergence of the Syrian state remain in the headlines. Yet Iraq—once the crucible of America’s post-9/11 military interventions, where more than 4,500 American service members lost their lives, over $2 trillion was spent, and two decades were devoted to a deeply fraught stabilization effort—has all but vanished from the national conversation.
But Iraq is not dormant, and its stability—or lack thereof—impacts nearly every major U.S. regional concern. A destabilized Iraq, absent U.S. combat power, would inevitably lead to amplified Iranian influence and a reinvigorated ISIL. Additionally, such a state could create the conditions for expanded conflict between Turkey and the Kurds in northern Iraq and Northeast Syria, improved logistics flow from Iran to militias in Syria and Lebanon and thus a greater security risk to Israel, and increased concern amongst Gulf Coordination Council states for their own security.
Continued U.S. presence is largely designed to prevent such risks from materializing because instability in Iraq doesn’t just threaten Baghdad—it spills into Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and the Gulf. For example, cross-border militia activity between Iraq and Syria allowed Iran to funnel weapons to proxy groups in Syria and Lebanon, demonstrating how crises in Iraq can upend broader strategic priorities and regional stability. And as the rise of ISIL demonstrates, when the U.S. is forced to re-engage, it is often on worse terms and at greater cost.
Critically, a destabilized Iraq does not simply threaten U.S. interests in the Middle East. If U.S. troops were once more forced to make a significant commitment to Iraq to fight, for instance, a reconstituted ISIL caliphate, the threat to American interests would be global. With the Chinese Communist Party’s intentions to take Taiwan and global hegemonic ambitions, and Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and aggressive revisionism, the U.S. can ill-afford a Middle East conflict that siphons away critical combat troops to the Middle East, yet that is exactly what could happen were Iraq to destabilize.
The risk of an unstable Iraq is compounded by the accelerating presence of America’s strategic competitors inside Iraq, as China and Russia deepen their ties. China, now Iraq’s largest trading partner, invests billions through its Belt and Road Initiative, trading resources and access for influence without any concern for governance or transparency. Russia, meanwhile, remains an active player in Iraqi energy markets and reconstruction projects. And Iran, despite its recent setbacks, remains a powerful power broker, leveraging militias and political proxies to shape Iraq’s future.
Iraq also remains one of the world’s top oil exporters, and its output plays a critical role in stabilizing global energy markets. Even though the United States no longer depends on Middle Eastern oil imports, energy is a globally traded commodity. Disruptions in Iraq—whether due to unrest, sabotage, or militia violence—can ripple across global supply chains and drive-up prices for American consumers and businesses alike.
Why the United States Should Stay Engaged
Washington seeks a stable Iraq that is sovereign, not a satellite of Iran; capable, not a breeding ground for terrorist resurgence; and independent, not beholden to China or Russia. That doesn’t require a democratic utopia—only a stable, resilient state that can manage its own affairs.
The 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq maintained as part of Combined Joint Task Force—Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) may seem like the legacy footprint of a bygone era, but their mission is neither symbolic nor static. American forces tasked with advising, assisting, and enabling Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Kurdish Peshmerga in ongoing counterterrorism operations can also coordinate airpower (including recent strikes in Kirkuk), facilitate intelligence collection, and offer logistical, medical, and command-and-control capabilities that Iraqi forces alone cannot yet execute.. CJTF-OIR also enables interoperability with Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service—the country’s most capable and professional fighting force.
Importantly, this limited troop presence helps the U.S. retain situational awareness in a country that continues to serve at a strategic crossroads. And, while the risk to U.S. personnel is certainly not zero, it is manageable; the U.S. divested of vulnerable bases like K1 after the rocket attacks of 2019-2020 and consolidated its forces in hardened bases like the Erbil and Al Asad Air Base. With just 2,500 troops, the U.S. is able to demonstrate that it holds the biggest stick, and so long as our adversaries know we are willing to use it, their willingness and ability to achieve their aims remains diminished.
The Iraqi government, for its part, has repeatedly expressed a desire for continued U.S. partnership, particularly in security and counterterrorism. That the current prime minister governs within a precarious parliamentary coalition, pressured by Iran-aligned political factions and militias that demand a full U.S. withdrawal, is added reason for the U.S to stay. Leaving would only empower those militias.
Many Iraqis—especially in the military, Kurdish north, and among civil society—still see value in a restrained U.S. presence that supports, but does not dominate, their path towards security—particularly if it prevents a reemergence of ISIL and further consolidation of Iranian power.
Competing effectively in Iraq does not require massive reinvestment. A modest U.S. presence—focused on advising Iraqi forces, enabling counterterrorism operations, and providing targeted economic and diplomatic engagement—can go a long way. This light-touch approach won’t dominate headlines or stretch budgets, but it can preserve hard-won gains and prevent the kind of collapse that would demand a far costlier re-entry.
History makes clear that the price of walking away is far higher than the cost of staying smartly engaged. Strategic neglect won’t make Iraq irrelevant—it will make it unstable, and instability in one part of the world leads to instability elsewhere.
Conclusion
Many of the Iraqis I had the opportunity to work with harbored ambitions familiar to many here in America; they desired a better future for their children, stability, and the freedom to live their lives free of fear and terrorism. They believed in their country’s future, but they were anxious about the expanding presence of Iranian-backed militias and the growing influence of the likes of China. Many understood, with quiet frustration, that real autonomy remained aspirational. Those same individuals hoped for a U.S. that would stay engaged, because they knew that without American presence, ISIL could reconstitute, Iran would be emboldened, and China would have a freer hand to play.
Few dispute that the United States must prioritize bigger theaters—China and the Indo-Pacific foremost amongst them. But those priorities don’t require walking away from Iraq. A light, smart, sustained presence is not mission creep—it’s a strategic hedge against future instability, a check on adversarial influence, and a quiet but powerful signal that America does not abandon hard places once the headlines move on.
The path forward isn’t about escalation. It’s about disciplined engagement—just enough to prevent a slide back into chaos and give Iraqis the tools to shape their own future. If Iraq collapses again, the U.S. won’t have the luxury of staying uninvolved. And if we’re forced to return, it could be on someone else’s terms—and at a much higher cost.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Defense. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of the information contained therein.
