Only six months after the Trump government said it would start with the withdrawal of American troops to Syria, the US confirmed this week that it will also start with reducing the number of American troops in Iraq under an agreement that has reached the Biden administration -a movement of the security of the movement of the movement could come.
Only six months after the Trump administration had announced plans to deduct American troops in Syria, the BIDEN administration this week confirmed that it will also lower the troop levels in Iraq under a new agreement -Iran and his “Shadow Empire” could strengthen.
The changes have come in the midst of one observed reduction In threat to the terrorist network ISIS and a growing American desire to put an end to ‘Forever Wars’.
Vs ‘UPS the Ante’, dentates by Iran -supported groups in Iraq terrorist organizations
But a reduced American presence in both Iraq and Syria has security experts who are very concerned about the power vacuum that it will create in both countries, and the immediate threat that Iran is.
Iran has expanded its influence in both Iraq and Syria for decades, and it has a complex and highly embedded presence in the region of military, politics, economic and social, which makes it difficult to distract or thwart its influence, even in the midst of a regime change in Syria.
People wave weapons in the air while they come together to celebrate the fall of the Syrian regime on December 8 from Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria. (Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty images)
Iran has used Shia -Militant troops from not only Syria, but Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, to construct a “parallel military infrastructure” in coordination with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that Syria has transformed into an “Iranian Vooruit Operational.”
According to a research report drawn up by the Middle East forum, with the help of sources on the land embedded since 2018 in Iranian military installations in Syria, Iran has not only built underground tunnels and weapon depots for its decision. Tehran has deeply embedded in the daily life of Syrians through an integrated system that has mixed military tasks with civil programs.
The command structure also transcends traditional national boundaries by integrating Iranian, Lebanese and Iraqi commanders.
While Iran is now confronted with opposition in Syria after the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime with the takeover of December 2024 by the Sunni paramilitary organization Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HST)-one time by the US as an uncertainty of the USRia as a crime of the US. Dynamic where Israel, Turkey and Russia all compete for more influence in the nation.
Masked by Iran supported Shiite hunters hold their weapons in Iraq’s Alidiya, south of Tikrit, on the way to the Al-Alam Town controlled by the Islamic State, where they are preparing to launch an offensive March 6, 2015. (Reuters/Thaier al-Sudani)
The Iraqi president says that Nation is ‘100% safe’ in the midst of persistent ISIS, militia.
Roman pointed out that if HST, in coordination with the Kurds in the northeast or the Druze in the southwest, cannot create “stronghold” against Iranian influence, Tehran could be well positioned to expand his regional interest among his “shadowful”.
“Perhaps the most worrying is the precedent that has been determined by the success of Iran when building this shadow empire,” the report thought. “The possibility to build parallel military infrastructure, to operate independently of the host’s government control and to maintain strategic capacities, despite the international research, a template that can be replicated elsewhere in the region offers.”
Although the strategy may be somewhat different, Iran has repeatedly used power vacuums to expand its reach and to prevent American influence, as seen in both Afghanistan, where it supported the Taliban, and in Iraq, where it started supporting Shia militia groups that the US fought in 2003.
Roggio said there are hundreds of thousands supported by Iran in Iraq who are largely part of the popular mobilization forces, who had a strong influence on the fight against ISIS and are part of the Iraqi armed forces under the prime minister’s order, but who are also heavily influenced by Tehran.
The popular mobilization forces of Iraq, dominated by Iran supported by Iran, hold an Islamic flag after Iraqi troops have taken over the northern city earlier in the month on 5 April 2015 in Tikrit, Iraq. (Mohammed Sawaf/AFP via Getty images)
Iran President accuses us of ‘serious betrayal’ with nuclear strikes in Unga Speech
“They have a significant influence on the Iraqi government. They occupied a large, dominant block in the Iraqi parliament. And these militias also have economic power,” said Roggio. “Iran built these militia forces along the same lines as Hezbollah, and they are essentially that they eventually become like it is Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran.”
Both Roman and Roggio expressed their concern about the withdrawal of American troops from the region and, more importantly, the removal of American influence at a time that Iran Washington and his interests want to combat heavily.
“We did not learn the lessons of Afghanistan and even the lessons of Iraq,” said Roggio. “I don’t care if we have 100 or 100,000 troops in Afghanistan or somewhere else. Do we have the right troops to reach the mission that we have expressed for them?
“We are talking about the number of troops … We are not really talking about what our mission is in Iraq? Is it a counter-isism mission? Is it a bar of the Iranian influence of influence?
“And do we have the right mix of military and diplomatic and political and economic influence in Iraq to achieve those goals? I don’t believe we do that.”
American troops offer military training to members of the YPG/SDF, which Turkey regards as an extension of PKK in Syria, in the Qamisli district in the province of Al-Hasakah, Syria, August 18, 2023. (Hedil Amir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Click here to get the Fox News app
Both experts pointed out that the US has a long history of not taking Iran and the threat it is seriously enough, a problem that has spoken for decades in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“The Iranians are patient. They work on schedules of decades and generations. And we are not patience. We work in timetables and two-year and four-year election cycles,” said Roggio. “Ultimately, Iran wants to expel the US from the region and expand its influence in neighboring countries, whether it is Afghanistan, whether it is Iraq, whether it is the Gulf States.
“The ultimate goal is to get the US out so that it can expand its influence.”
