Iraq's government is expected to announce Wednesday a formal diplomatic note to Washington demanding a structured timeline for the withdrawal of US military personnel from Iraqi soil, as pressure from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and allied parliamentary blocs reaches a breaking point following Iran's missile strikes on American and Israeli military positions across the Gulf region.
The Iraqi cabinet convened an emergency session Tuesday night after the Islamic Resistance in Iraq publicly called on Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani to act decisively, warning that failure to move against the US presence would be treated as complicity in what they characterised as aggression against the broader resistance axis. Senior officials from the Coordination Framework, a coalition of pro-Iran Shia political parties, confirmed they delivered the same message directly to the prime minister's office.
The move comes one day after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for strikes targeting military installations in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, with at least one missile intercepted by NATO systems over Turkish airspace. The strikes have dramatically escalated regional tensions and handed hardliners in Baghdad significant political leverage, as the Iraqi street responds with a mix of alarm and nationalist sentiment.
Washington is expected to respond with a firm rejection, with State Department officials signalling that any withdrawal discussion must occur within the framework of existing bilateral security agreements and cannot be dictated by militia pressure. The Pentagon has approximately 2,500 troops stationed in Iraq under a counter-ISIS mandate, a presence that has been renegotiated multiple times since 2020.
Analysts in Baghdad caution that while al-Sudani is unlikely to issue an outright expulsion order — fearful of economic consequences and US reaction — Wednesday's diplomatic note may represent a calibrated concession to domestic pressure, offering the appearance of action without triggering a full rupture with Washington. The situation is being closely watched by Gulf Arab states, who view any weakening of the US footprint in Iraq as a strategic gain for Tehran at a moment of acute regional instability.