Alwaght- Full US pullout of Iraq on September 30 may have put an end to a two-decade direct military presence in this country, but it does not mean Washington will abandon its security and strategic role in Iraq and the broader region.
Pieces of evidence show that Washington is moving past the old policy of relying on thousands of military forces and dozens of fixed military based as main tools of influence in favor of a model where intelligence, military training, weapons, security cooperation, and the power to act from outside the host country like Iraq come into priority.
Pentagon, for its part, called the withdrawal a "transition from war-time coalition mission to Iraqi-led security effort", adding that targeted training and intelligence support to Baghdad will continue.
This shift in view for some political experts in the US does not necessarily mean putting Iraq aside from the US policy. Victoria Taylor, who directs the Iraq Initiative and Syria Project at the Atlantic Council and previously served at the State Department, argues the real test comes after the troops leave; whether Washington can sustain a bilateral defense relationship and keep backing the Iraqi government. Alina Romanowski, a former US ambassador to Iraq, has likewise warned that a troop withdrawal must not be mistaken for abandoning Iraqi partners.
First scenario: maintaining military influence without massive presence in Iraq
It is important to note that Washington still can sway the Iraqi security structure through training, weapons sales and support, intelligence sharing, and boosting counterterrorism forces of Iraq. This model is actually a transfer of part of the responsibility of operations to Iraqi military, with the US not abandoning its influence tools altogether.
Along those lines, Dovora Margolin, a researcher at the Washington Institute, argues that the US mission in recent years has shifted from direct operations toward advising, assisting, and empowering Iraqi forces, and that training, intelligence-sharing, and the transfer of institutional know-how remain critical to preventing an ISIS comeback. A physical troop withdrawal, in other words, does not necessarily mean a severing of security cooperation.
A regional source, meanwhile, told Al Jazeera that the future relationship will likely lean less on a visible military presence and more on intelligence, training, technical support, and institutional partnership.
Second scenario: Turning Iraq from an operational base to an intelligence knot
In modern warfare, intelligence has come to matter even more than a boots-on-the-ground presence. By keeping its intelligence channels open with Iraq's security forces, working with its counterterrorism agencies, and maintaining ties to Kurdish Regional Government forces, Washington can still keep a read on security developments in Iraq, in Syria, and on the activity of resistance groups.
In this connection, Mohammed Saleh, an Iraq expert and researcher at the American Foreign Policy Institute, says it remains unclear exactly what American-Iraqi security cooperation will look like after a withdrawal, particularly in the realms of intelligence and logistics support, which played a pivotal role in defeating ISIS.
Third scenario: Transfer of US's operations center of gravity from Iraq to neighboring countries
Exit from Iraq does not mean leaving Iraq security environment. The US administration can station its forces in countries like Jordan and elsewhere in the region, and draw on air, intelligence, and missile capabilities to respond if a threat emerges. The Washington Post has reported that after leaving Iraq, US forces will pursue a major part of the anti-ISIS mission from Jordan, and an American official has said operations launched from outside Iraq remain an option if US troops or interests come under threat.
This is the shift that might be called "security influence without military occupation", meaning Washington does not necessarily need a large footprint on Iraqi soil to project power. Its forces can sit outside Iraq while intelligence, communications networks, security cooperation, and long-range strike capabilities are all preserved.
Fourth scenario: Re-designing the US security web in the region
Senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mark Kansian, believes recent regional developments have pushed some Arab states closer to Israel, a dynamic that could help Washington build a kind of regional balance against Iran.
The analysis suggests that in the eyes of some American experts, Washington may come to rely less on a heavy presence in Iraq and more on a network of regional partners.
Under such a model, Iraq is no longer necessarily Washington's main base but part of a broader security environment that includes Jordan, Persian Gulf states, the Israeli regime, and other US partners. In this model, Washington can hand off the bulk of its security interests to regional governments while retaining the ability to intervene quickly.
In this regard, Nate Swanson, director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council and a former US National Security Council official, argues that leaving Iraq alone will not produce a decisive shift in US-Iran relations, and may even remove one avenue for Iran to pressure US forces directly in peacetime. That view underscores a key point which is that the troop withdrawal should be seen as part of a broader redefinition of America's presence across the region.
Fifth scenario: US limited return in case of a security crisis
Full exit from Iraq does not mean the US forces are impossible to return to Iraq. In this regard, former American ambassador to Iraq and Turkey James Jeffrey has warned that Washington should observe the deployment-withdrawal-rapid return cycle since if ISIS re-emerges or a new security crisis erupts, the US may once again face an urgency for intervention.
Therefore, generally, it must be said that the future of the American presence in Iraq is measured not by the number of boots on the ground but by the scale of intelligence access, security cooperation, Iraq weapon dependence, training programs for Iraqi forces, and the US capability to react from outside Iraq. September 30 exit can mean end of a model of American presence, but whether it will mean end of American security foothold will be contingent on the future developments and the type of the relationship Washington and Baghdad will establish after this pullout.
