As the United States continues to issue unwavering political and military support for Israel’s ongoing campaign against the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza, pressure is mounting in both Iraq and Syria for the expulsion of U.S. forces mired in clashes with militias supported by Iran. 

In comments shared with Newsweek , the Syrian Mission to the United Nations argued that the U.S. military presence in the country “is illegal, illegitimate, and constitutes a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.” 

"This illegal military presence serves and complements the destabilizing policies of the U.S. administrations," the Mission stated, "including the support it provides for its terrorist tools and separatist militias, its continued plundering of Syrian national wealth, and the catastrophic repercussions of the unilateral coercive measures it imposes on the Syrian people." 

Given the worsening crisis gripping the Middle East, including the series of attacks claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria over the Israel-Hamas war and U.S. airstrikes in both countries, the Mission asserted that now was the time for U.S. President Joe Biden to reassess his approach to the region.
 

"The current developments in the region should serve as an opportunity for the United States to rectify its misguided policies,” the Mission argued, “which have only contributed to the destabilization of security and stability in Syria and the broader region." 

While Damascus has always opposed the deployment of U.S. forces officially tasked with ensuring the lasting defeat of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) on Syrian soil, Baghdad has also increasingly called into question the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq in light of worsening tensions that threaten to further destabilize the nation. 

Unlike in Syria, U.S. troops in Iraq work in partnership with the central government. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has accused the Biden administration of violating this framework, however, as a result of unilateral U.S. airstrikes targeting militias, some of which are part of Iraq’s state-sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces paramilitary network. 

This friction last month led to the convening of the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission to discuss a “transition” of the U.S. military presence in Iraq.  

Biden had previously announced a shift in the U.S. military posture in Iraq in 2021, ushering in the end of U.S. troops’ “combat” mission. But both then and now, the Pentagon has maintained that it had no plans to pull out troops entirely. 

The Iraq government has hardened its rhetoric, however, especially since Biden ordered an intensive series of 58 strikes against seven facilities in Iraq and Syria and the assassination of a high-ranking official of Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia earlier this month in response to the deaths of three U.S. troops in a drone attack at the Jordan-Syria border. 

Iraqi Ministry of Defense spokesperson Yahya Rasool argued that “the American forces jeopardize civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and disregard the safety and lives of our citizens,” adding that the U.S.-led coalition “consistently deviates from the reasons and objectives for its presence on our territory.” 

“This trajectory compels the Iraqi government more than ever to terminate the mission of this coalition, which has become a factor for instability and threatens to entangle Iraq in the cycle of conflict,” Rasool said. “And our armed forces cannot neglect their constitutional duties and responsibilities, which demand safeguarding the security of Iraqis and the land of Iraq from all threats." 

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