(SeaPRwire) –
By: Marcus Sinclair
The coming US exit from Iraq risks repeating the exact mistake that let ISIS seize Mosul a decade ago. No one in Western capitals seems to be paying enough attention to the feedback loop tearing Iraq’s security apart. Two overlapping deadlines collide on September 30. They create a perfect storm for violent extremism to re-emerge. The warning comes from someone who lived through the last collapse of Mosul. It is not a hypothetical or a generic threat assessment. Omar Mohammed, who secretly ran the Mosul Eye blog under ISIS rule, has seen this play out before. He knows exactly how the vacuum gets filled.
The US has a fixed timetable to pull all troops out of Iraq by September 30. This follows a 2024 agreement that set a full end to the US mission by 2025. US Central Command says it will still work to dismantle ISIS networks. The facts on the ground tell a far grimmer story. Citing Iraqi intelligence, Mohammed says ISIS fighter numbers in Syria jumped from 2,000 to 10,000 since 2024. Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces still count 238,000 members after ISIS’s territorial defeat. They get billions in Iraqi government funding every year. Many of their largest factions are tied to Iran and operate outside Baghdad’s direct control. Baghdad is currently trying to bring these factions, including Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, under full state control. That means September 30 holds two deadlines, not one. It marks both the full US withdrawal and Baghdad’s domestic push for disarmament. The dynamic at play is the exact same one that hollowed out Mosul before 2014. Militias keep their weapons by claiming the constant ISIS threat. ISIS recruits new members from the grievances that militias create. Both sides thrive in the ungoverned gaps the central Iraqi state cannot reach. Iran has already openly condemned Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s July 14 White House meeting, where the withdrawal was announced.
Iran’s strategic position in the region has shifted dramatically in recent years. US strikes have degraded large parts of its proxy network across the Middle East. Iraq is now the main foothold Iran has left to project regional power. Iran’s biggest fear is not a full ISIS resurgence that threatens its interests. It is being made completely irrelevant in Iraq. Tehran does not want to see Baghdad successfully disarm the pro-Iran militias. It does not want US troops to leave on Baghdad’s terms, not Iran’s. It does not want a stable Iraq with no ongoing security crisis to justify armed groups operating outside full state control. CENTCOM’s promises of continued counterterrorism work do not fix this structural problem. Mohammed points out that Mosul did not fall in 2014 because ISIS was overly strong. It fell because the world pulled back its attention and on-the-ground presence years before. The same complacency is setting in right now. Stated diplomatic intentions will not shape what happens after September. The interdependency of militias and ISIS will play out regardless of what any side says they want. Whether ISIS grows large enough to frighten Iran, or stays just large enough to serve it, will define regional security for the next decade.
Author bio: Marcus Sinclair, Senior Fellow at a European geopolitical security think tank, focused on Middle East proxy conflict dynamics.