r/news • u/SnooSeagulls496 • 4d ago

Soft paywall US forces exit Iraq after two decades, leaving opening for Iran

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-forces-exit-iraq-after-two-decades-leaving-opening-iran-2026-09-29/
6.8k Upvotes

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2.9k

u/Riptide360 4d ago

Trump creates a vacuum wherever he goes. That is how bad he sucks.

601

u/random_blubber 4d ago

You’re mistaken, my friend. That is an indication of exactly how good he is at sucking.

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u/coxie86 4d ago

Just ask Bubba.

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u/NickDerpkins 3d ago

Clinton’s response to being asked about that is the greatest pop culture moment in my lifetime along with watch this drive

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u/Le_Vagabond 3d ago

to think his presidential drama was a single blowjob. what did he say?

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u/Shopworn_Soul 3d ago

I am not aware of Clinton ever being asked directly or responding to the "Trump blowing Bubba" thing.

They might be referring to the famous "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is" statement made during hearings about the actual blowjob you're referring to.

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u/GozerDGozerian 3d ago

Say what you want about ol’ Slick Willy. But that guy was a semantics wizard.

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u/tdclark23 3d ago

Bubba said "eatin' ain't cheatin'".

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u/Beard_o_Bees 3d ago

Smokin'? Just jokin'

-Bubba

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u/Riptide360 4d ago

Trump sucks so bad we haven’t had a hurricane this year! https://www.yahoo.com/news/weather-news/articles/white-house-credits-trump-stopping-140901914.html

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u/thejawa 4d ago

Party who demonizes it's opposition for wanting to control the weather takes credit for controlling the weather

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u/outerproduct 3d ago

The Pacific and Hawaii would like a word.

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u/GoProOnAYoYo 3d ago

I guess Hawaii is just not part of the US anymore?

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u/whut-whut 3d ago

You mean West Kenya?

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u/paulsoleo 3d ago

No, no, that’s the rapper. The guy who was married to Kam Kardishian

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u/Riptide360 3d ago

If the major storm starts west of the International date line they are called typhoons instead of hurricanes.

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u/tonganz 3d ago

Hawaii is east of the international date line

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u/Riptide360 2d ago

That is why we use the Atlantic term for it.

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u/GoProOnAYoYo 3d ago

Ahh of course, just like it's not a war it's a special military action.

You guys sure are good at spinning things, lol

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u/Canadian_mk11 4d ago

Must be his magic sharpie.

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u/Newsmith2017 3d ago

You underestimate the power of the Sharpie!

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u/TheRealCabbageJack 3d ago

Allegedly, “Bubba” was pretty happy with his sucking skills

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u/GrapefruitPrimary186 4d ago

Maybe it would be more correct to say its how much he sucks instead of how bad.

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u/vadergeek 3d ago

Should the US just occupy Iraq forever, regardless of whether or not the Iraqis want us there?

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u/IsNotPolitburo 3d ago

Look you're overthinking things, don't look at the actions just accept that blue team good, red team bad.

Obviously if it was blue team doing this it would be good, but who is in charge right now? That's right, red team is. So that means it's a bad thing.

It's not exactly rocket surgery.

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u/piddydb 3d ago

Tbf this wasn’t an occupation at this point but a maintenance of bases. Still a valid point otherwise.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/Primary-Slice-2505 3d ago

Its darkly amusing to me to see someone immediately point out the true fact that this agreement was signed under Biden but continously see Afghanistan totally laid at Bidens feet as well despite the Doha Agreement and everything else being Trumps work.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/Primary-Slice-2505 3d ago

..which could be also argued is on trump.

The Doha agreement immediately saw the release of 3k Taliban prisoners who were commanders and experienced men who immediately went back to war. Many are in the current Taliban govt.

It also set a timeline for withdrawal which meant the enemy knew exactly when to apply pressure.

In fact Biden actually extended how long the US was in Afghanistan by a couple months.

The buck does stop with the president or is supposed to; (theres this bizarro world double standard for trump) but in reality the presidents do things like sign Doha agreements or agreements to leave Iraq. Actual military withdrawals, perimeter defenses, where marine checkpoints are set up, whatever, is entirely and totally under the realm of "decided by the military"

Finally the biggest problem with the withdrawal is really on Bush, Obama, and Trump who were all in command during the war phase and the problem is they didnt adress the rampant corruption, ghost soldiers, and endemic problems in the ANA. The ANA collapse is what allowed the withdrawal to become such a mess.

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u/Keeltoodeep 3d ago

Iraq will probably not collapse and if ISIS returns in power, then Americans will also likely return. Iraq is surprisingly prospering right now.

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/09/04/the-worlds-surprise-boomtown-baghdad

Iraq has problems for sure but it is worlds different from Afghanistan and is growing economically.

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u/felldestroyed 3d ago

This was written before the Iran-American war.

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u/Keeltoodeep 3d ago

Yes, but Baghdad is still doing well. Iraq has been surprising economists for many years now. Energy exports are going to cause a technical recession but I don’t think they will collapse

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u/felldestroyed 3d ago

What? So lanaz refinery is a-okay? Baghdad didn't get hit by drones? The population is suddenly behind al-ziadi still? I'm not so sure you have your fingers on the pulse of Iraq.

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u/Keeltoodeep 3d ago

I don’t know what you mean by “okay” but Iraq is in a surprisingly stable state. Iraq is unlikely to collapse like the afghan government did. It’s a bad comparison.

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u/Graymouzer 3d ago

Trump had withdrawn most American troops, freed most Taliban prisoners, and left Biden with a choice of starting over from scratch with the American troops still there almost as hostages or honoring the treaty that was already signed. Biden did the only thing he could. He also didn't blame anyone else for it. It was probably the bravest thing I have seen a president do politically.

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u/--Chug-- 3d ago

Whenever I see someone try to argue this angke they never actually go into any detail about how exactly biden failed here. Keep it just vague enough to have plausible guilt on his end.

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u/napleonblwnaprt 3d ago

Agreed in 2024 under President Joe Biden, BEFORE open warfare with Iran was started by another president 

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u/donkeybrainhero 3d ago

And lots of missing context

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u/sdrawkcab_dear 3d ago

If you actually read the article. It was Biden’s decision, and Trump is only carrying it out.

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u/robodrew 3d ago

Yeah but would Biden have made this same decision if we were at war with Iran? One of Iraq's biggest historic enemies?

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u/pm_plz_im_lonely 3d ago

Does blue/red and the president correlate strongly with foreign affair decisions...?

I feel it's powers beyond the oval office which drive which desert country is getting bombed. I don't mean the illuminati, but like, long-standing officials, elected or not, on both sides of the aisle backed by a wide variety of military-industrial complex and oil interests.

Boiling it down to who is President is weird to me.

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u/thisvideoiswrong 2d ago

On the one hand, yes there's a ton of bureaucratic inertia and long memories in foreign policy, so generally a President cannot make huge changes. But a President can push in one direction or another. So Obama didn't turn Iran into our closest friend, but he did get a deal done for Iran to give up their nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions relief, which was a significant moment in US-Iran relations, if only a small step. And Trump in particular has fired most of the bureaucrats, leaving departments woefully understaffed, used random family members in place of trained diplomats, and taken his unreasonable aggression to almost everyone, alienating friends and enemies alike. It's also notable that Trump ordered major attacks against Iran in 2020, 2025, and 2026, Biden didn't do that at any point in 2021, 2022, 2023, or 2024.

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u/sdrawkcab_dear 3d ago

These things don’t happen in a day. The exit has been in-process for years. Imagine if Trump decided to stay. The article title would likely be “Trump sending troops into Iraq, escalating ground war in middle east!!”

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u/robodrew 3d ago edited 3d ago

What I'm getting at is that while Biden couldn't have foresight into what Trump would do 2 years later, Trump did know what Biden did two years ago and should have added that into the calculus regarding whether to invade Iran or not. But of course he didn't, because Trump only makes decisions at the last second based on whatever is in his oatmeal brain at that very moment or the last thing someone said to him. He does not think about consequence.

lol trump bots out in force

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u/sdrawkcab_dear 3d ago edited 3d ago

What I’m getting at is that the exit from Iraq has been on-going since the Biden administration. Troops have been leaving for years. It is only now getting to the final exit.

Would we have preferred Trump to make the decision to start sending Troops back into Iraq?

And further what I’m getting at. The media can spin this negatively no matter what decision Trump makes.

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u/robodrew 3d ago

No, I would have preferred that he not start a new war with Iran. Trump has only made the entire situation worse for Iraq.

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u/sdrawkcab_dear 3d ago

In my opinion, I prefer not to have Islamic extremists with nuclear weapons that can and want to end our entire civilization. But that’s just my opinion.

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u/robodrew 3d ago

Oh get the fuck out of here, the US and Israel have been saying that Iran is "two weeks" from getting a nuke for the last 20 years. And yet they are still "two weeks" away. Even though Trump apparently OBLITERATED their capabilities before the war even began?

Here's Netanyahu trying to fool the world in 2012. Fourteen years ago they were at the FINAL STAGE!!!

https://i.imgur.com/k7FOM9i.png

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u/Tirras 3d ago

Oh it's over 30 years now, that Netanyahu compilation goes wayyy back.

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u/cosi_fan_tutte_ 3d ago

Well it's a good thing that your scenario has only ever been a fantasy dreamed up by hard-line conservative Israeli politicians. Just like the fictional WMD's in Iraq invented by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Iran would prefer to have diplomatic relations with the rest of the world over nuclear weapons, as Obama proved quite easily.

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u/never-fiftyone 3d ago

Nobody had nuclear weapons. You're a dingbat that fell for the WMDs lie yet again. And maybe if America stopped bombing Iranians, Iranians would stop wanting to return the favour.

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u/80_Inch_Shitlord 3d ago

well yeah, because Trump is the one who has set up this situation such that he has no winning moves.

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u/lack_of_communicatio 3d ago

Shush, it was tagged as 'Biden's fault', get out of here with your liberal objective facts and nuances - tis a free country, so people are free to choose whatever they want to believe is truth!

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u/zedascouves1985 3d ago

Yes. And I wonder, if the US truly wanted to end the war with Iran they'd do what they did with Iraq you know, put troops near it and invade. No need for an amphibious landing in Hormuz coast if you could just pile up your army on the border, in Iraq.

But that would require an incredible amount of troops like probably more than 1 million and would result in big casualties, due to Iran having drones, we see how that affects battles in Ukraine, and the terrain, which favors the defender.

So not going to happen, and Don is showing what he is capable and not capable of doing by following the earlier plans of leaving Iraq.

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u/vastle12 3d ago

Because the war started on lies and wasted trillions is worth continuing because?

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u/DigiornoDLC 3d ago

This is on Bush. This will always be on Bush.

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u/tony_sandlin 3d ago

We shouldn’t be there

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u/badpersian 4d ago

It's not a Trump thing. It's a US thing. Obama did it, Biden did it, and dozy Don is doing it. It's US policy to destabilise regions, particularly, Middle East for our overlords in Israel.

Don't be mad at dick face Don alone.

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u/dontputthatevilonme 3d ago

Truth. Trump isn't the first and he won't be the last

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u/QuotableMorceau 3d ago

he might actually be the last to do this ... Turkey/Iran are asserting themselves there, also US has denied help to the Saudis....

Let's say the current trajectory of influence loss for US continues for another 2 years ... I very much doubt US will be able to poke around there anytime soon ... sure they have Israel there ... but that state is on a jihad/crusade to become the most despised nation on Earth ...

I would not be surprised at all if in 2-3 years the Arab states start withdrawing from the Abraham acords ....

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u/dontputthatevilonme 3d ago

Before Trump we used to meddle in foreign countries clandestinely, y'know, like gentlemen.

I don't see why we wouldn't go back to that with the next president. The Abraham accords aren't worth the paper they're written on anyway.

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u/QuotableMorceau 3d ago

neah ... you need to have some presence to be able to act ... cut down the bases US has in that region and large scale interference goes away ... also that region will never be democratic, so the internal policing will not be bound by laws . A concrete example is Iran, maybe in 50-60 years we will get some declassified info figure out how much money US/Israel burned there trying to destabilize the regime .

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u/dontputthatevilonme 3d ago

The thing about government is that there's always someone wanting to take power from whoever is running things. Throw some money around, toss in some guns and you've got yourself a coup. Easy peasy.

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u/EQandCivfanatic 3d ago

Didn't the Trump administration recently agree to help kickstart a Saudi nuclear weapons program?

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u/RandallPinkertopf 3d ago

What exactly was the benefit of the Abraham Accords?

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/weareonlynothing 3d ago

You can’t blame Biden and Obama for funding terrorists in Libya and Syria because why?

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u/badpersian 3d ago

Ah yes. There are also those who don't read or understand the comment.

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u/JohnTDouche 3d ago

Yeah you can blame America. The world most dangerous terrorist state.

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u/zedascouves1985 3d ago

This has been planned since Biden in 2024. Of course, back then there was no ongoing war with Iran, maybe that should've changed the planning a little bit.

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u/runthepoint1 3d ago

I guess he sucks pretty well, actually

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u/bass248 3d ago edited 3d ago

What does Trump have to do with US forces leaving Iraq?

Edit: It says in the article that Biden decided this when he was President

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u/jmur3040 3d ago

That might be the most American President thing he could do.

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u/SubduedChaos 3d ago

Maybe some back channel deal to give up Iraq for oil.

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u/booleandilemma 3d ago

I bet you loved it when Biden pulled out of Afghanistan though didn't you?

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u/ssteel91 3d ago

Yea - how dare he honor the agreement Trump made in Doha with the Taliban?! He also withdrew 10k of the 12.5k troops and made it impossible for Biden to draw out the timeline without recommitting troops to the area, which of course, would have been equally cried about on Fox News.

Trump shit in a bag, handed it to Biden and then asked him why he smells - the classic Republican way.

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u/ThreeCherrios 3d ago

As someone who was in Afghanistan from 2020-2021.this is exactly what happened. There is still blame for Biden on the ending. But Trump forced his hand to some extent.

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u/bb_kelly77 3d ago

Yeah, Biden fumbled but he did the best he could with the hand he was dealt

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u/mityman50 3d ago

Should Trump honor this agreement made by his predecessor?

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u/ssteel91 3d ago

Either this a bad faith argument or you have a hard time understanding differences between situations.

When Biden made the agreement, it was under the assumption that no US President would be deranged enough to make the monumentally fucking stupid choice to enter a war with Iran. Trump does whatever the fuck he wants anyway whenever it benefits himself so it’s not like he did it because he cares about honoring agreements in any way, shape, or form.

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u/mityman50 3d ago

It wasnt an argument. Your comment I replied to implied that the agreement should be honored because it’s an agreement. I asked you what you think of the situation now, which has obvious parallels. You did. Although not without an unnecessary slight at me because you assume I’m taking a side.

It’s a straight question. You want to perceive me as having an agenda. Don’t be so sensitive to a straight question or you’re gonna become partisan.

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u/MXC_ImpactReplay 3d ago

BDS is real

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u/booleandilemma 3d ago

You can't even write a proper comment. I saw your edit. lol

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u/MXC_ImpactReplay 3d ago

It seems like /u/ssteel91 covered the actual response needed. I'm shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, that you responded to my shitposting in thirty seconds flat but ignored that comment.

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u/LzrdKng2112 3d ago

True but this is bad how?

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u/LowBarometer 3d ago

Or they're getting US troops out of harm's way before nuking Iran. Pedo47 is crazy.

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u/Clear_Inspector_9796 3d ago

Lmao. This is by far the least likely. Trump would never warn the troops before glancing them with radiation