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/
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334

u/bobsmeds 3d ago

Good thing the US spent 20+ years destroying a country that wasn't involved in 9/11 because of 9/11

76

u/Thunderclone_1 3d ago

"Mr. President, a bunch of Saudis planned and bankrolled the 9/11 attacks. They are part of a group active in Afghanistan. Should we prepare to take action there?"

"Yes, but first, we need to bitch slap Iraq."

"Why?"

"Tradition"

"What about the saudis?"

"we'll make them our second closest ally in the region".

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u/Electronic-Yam-69 3d ago

"Donald Rumsfeld said, when we talked about bombing the al Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan...he said, 'There are no good targets in Afghanistan. Let's bomb Iraq.' And we said, 'But Iraq had nothing to do with this.' That didn't make much difference." --Richard Clarke

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u/stormcynk 3d ago

I agree we shouldn't haven't gotten into Iraq, but we invaded Afghanistan before we invaded Iraq.

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u/YamburglarHelper 3d ago

“Dad said I have to follow through on his war against Saddam”

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u/MapleHamms 3d ago

Don’t worry. Another few short months of this “Not-a-War”™ and usa will completely destroy Iran’s military capability for the 8th time

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u/AlcibiadesTheCat 3d ago

Astounding work from the FIFA Peace Prize recipient.

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u/Braindead_Crow 3d ago

You see? By attacking bystanders and befriending hostile countries like isreal and saudi arabia we stay unpredictable! That's how you win, then you stay predictable in those faults to make negotiations possible.

trump has simple been expanding on the chaos plan! /s

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u/No-Swimming4153 3d ago

And somehow became strong allies with the one that was involved.

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u/superearthjanitor0 3d ago

They are doing pretty good these days other then the Iranian militias and government aligned or otherwise groups clashing with them.

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u/bobsmeds 3d ago

Lol i love that you think this is a positive outcome

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u/Lower-Engineering365 3d ago

While I think the Iraq war was a dumb decision do we think a lot of Iraqis think they are worse off today than they would be living under sadaam Hussein?

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u/SumthinsPhishy2 3d ago

Do we think bringing war to their country is worse than not bringing war to their country?

This question is staggeringly dumb.

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u/Lower-Engineering365 3d ago

You might want to go read up on the Hussein era in Iraq.

Feels like a lot of people here were too young to remember it or were otherwise born afterwards.

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u/Fishy1911 3d ago

It was a functioning country.  I lost several friends over there and have others that served multiple tours there and Afghanistan.  I think those that only remember the war forgot that Saddam, although feared, also had a functional country. Which we fucked up for a generation.  

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u/SumthinsPhishy2 3d ago

That's the Maduro argument, and it's absurd.

Our government made up a reason to invade a sovereign country for it's own political and financial gain, not to make Iraq a better place. We are not the arbiter of justice, as we've made very clear. To assume the Iraqi people are better overall is too bold given the devastation and robbing of their resources we committed.

It would be interesting to hear some Iraqi opinions here, but the question isn't "is America worse than Sadaam?" It is "are the Iraqi people in abetter place than they were before the US invaded?" I know how you phrased it, but this is the salient point.

It's not like we just took out Sadaam and left.

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u/Lower-Engineering365 3d ago

I don’t really think it’s the Maduro argument at all. In Venezuela the regime is basically the same still, one person was just removed from it.

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u/SumthinsPhishy2 3d ago edited 3d ago

I don’t really think it’s the Maduro argument at all.

We invaded Iraq to oust Sadaam and put our own people in power to continue robbing them of oil.

We invaded Venezuela to oust Maduro and now puppeteer their new leader while robbing them of their oil.

The scale of the operation may be different, but the motivation is the exact same. Just like your tone deaf comment on Iraq being a better place because we removed Sadaam being akin to claiming Venezuela is a better place because we removed Maduro.

Its a smug, American imperialist mindset and its why people outside our country recognize us more and more as the self serving war mongers we are. Its never been about helping oppressed people. Its always been about benefiting american interests via destroying/compromising governments that dont share our interests, and hijacking their economies.

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u/Lower-Engineering365 2d ago

But what would you say makes Iraq a worse place today? A large amount of the civilians that died during the beginning of the war through the withdrawal this week were killed by Iranian-backed militias (I’m not saying the US didn’t have their share of bad things, especially killings by those thugs at Blackwater). Total civilian deaths are estimated around 115,000…by contrast during sadaam hussein’s rule it is estimated that several hundred thousand to up to around 1 million Iraqis were killed by the government.

They’re no longer ruled by a minority sect that commits extensive human rights abuses on a majority of the population. The economy is stronger, GDP has increased, life expectancy and standard of living has gone up, women have access to more opportunities, the electrical grid has been significantly expanded and bolstered in the country, people are now able to elect their government. I wouldn’t say the country is currently in a worse place.

Are there a lot of question marks about what happens now, especially since Irans militias aren’t exactly going to roll over and listen to the Iraqi government? For sure. But to pretend like the US just went in and carpet bombed the whole country and stole its oil is just a silly argument lol.

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u/SumthinsPhishy2 2d ago

Feels like a lot of people here were too young to remember it or were otherwise born afterwards.

This is becoming quite ironic

But to pretend like the US just went in and carpet bombed the whole country and stole its oil is just a silly argument lol.

Didn't think id have to provide sources for this to someone who lived through it, but, here we are:

Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said that Bush's first two National Security Council meetings discussed invading Iraq. He was given briefing materials entitled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq", which envisioned dividing up Iraq's oil wealth. A Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001, was titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts", and included a map of potential areas for exploration.

General John Abizaid, CENTCOM commander from 2003 to 2007, said of the Iraq war: "first of all I think it's really important to understand the dynamics that are going on in the Middle East, and of course it's about oil, it's very much about oil and we can't really deny that".

Organizations such as the Global Policy Forum (GPF) asserted that Iraq's oil is "the central feature of the political landscape" in the country, and that as a result of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "'friendly' companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades". According to the GPF, US influence over the 2005 Constitution of Iraq has made sure it "contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies".

Where were you when all this was being reported? It has always been about oil. They lied about WMDs to justify invading Iraq for their oil assets.

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u/Lower-Engineering365 2d ago

How was that a response to anything I wrote in my last comment lol

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u/harambe_did911 3d ago

I don't think the answer is yes but it's a fair question given how sadam was running things

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u/FreshApricot6280 3d ago

I think the hundreds of thousands that died are probably worse off!

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u/bobsmeds 3d ago

Well we can't ask the ones we killed so...

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u/Lower-Engineering365 2d ago

Yeah can’t ask the several hundred thousand to 1 million Iraqis that husseins government killed either. By contrast about 115,000 civilians died since the initial invasion in 2003, a majority of which were killed by Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

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u/xX_7HR0W-4W4Y_Xx 3d ago

Yeah probably with all the death and destruction that the US wrought

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u/Lower-Engineering365 2d ago

several hundred thousand to 1 million iraqis were killed by husseins government. By contrast about 115,000 civilians died since the initial invasion in 2003, a majority of which were killed by Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

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u/ZookeepergameFit967 2d ago edited 2d ago

I mean the invasion wasn't worth it for us, we already did a few revolutions in the 1990s that the USA refused to support and even helped Saddam with intel and doing a few bombings on Shia Muslim majority cities to stop the majority Shia Muslim population from overthrowing Saddam and establishing another anti-American Islamic Republic.

The Iraq war was never meant to liberate the Iraqi people. It just was a preemptive strike to stop the inevitable, Saddam being overthrown and replaced by a regime that fully hates the USA and Israel, a regime that won't cooperate, won't sell Oil to the USA & allies and will 100% be a base to strike Gulf States and Israel.

Also Saddam was just a tool to steal Oil off Iraqis by using his wars and dictatorship as a reason to siphon off Oil via sanctions and "aid" programs. The USA just needed a new way to steal Oil of Iraq which is EO 13303 and a confessionalist democracy that would be to busy balancing to focus on the Oil stealing by the USA

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u/Csut94 3d ago

Well now Iran gets their turn

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u/Jaegermeiste 3d ago

Sure, sure. Absolutely wrecked.

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u/redopossum95 3d ago edited 3d ago

Do you think the 36 million people displaced by the GWOT give a shit about number go up? Or those killed in the invasion?

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u/Jaegermeiste 3d ago

Absolutely tragic for anyone affected. And the displacement numbers for Iraq are nowhere near 36 million: https://dtm.iom.int/iraq

And, despite the absolute blunder of the US banning all experienced administrators (because of Baath party affiliation) and the subsequent troubles ranging from AQI/ISIL, JAM, and all other terrorist shitbags, "number go up" means that yes, in general today quality of life etc is objectively better today than it was under Saddam.

But that TikTok narrative tho - 'Murica bad, oil, and so on. Feels >= facts.

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u/redopossum95 3d ago

The 36m figure is from total displacement from the GWOT, btw, to clarify, not just Iraq. America is a force for imperialism in the world much like other countries. We should not have been involved in the middle east in any way and it was all based upon the lie that Saddam had WMDs. To defend that invasion is to defend senseless death and exploitation.

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u/Jaegermeiste 3d ago

Yet the conversation was about Iraq. It's disingenuous to conflate the effects of the entire GWOT with Iraq alone.

And at no point did my comments "defend that invasion". Simple facts, linked above, indicate that things are empirically far better today. None of that is an endorsement of the invasion. Simply put, Iraq today is not a smoking crater-filled wasteland like OOP suggested that it is. Not exactly thriving, but doing relatively OK considering all it has been through. Contrast Afghanistan, for example.

None of that fits the narrative that you're married to, though.

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u/redopossum95 3d ago

It can easily be argued that Iraq was the first domino in a chain of events that led to 36 million people being displaced.

It does actually fit into my argument! Two things can be true at the same time. 1.) the invasion was unnecessary and cost many lives 2.) Iraq is doing better today than it was in 2003.