Iraq Militias End Truce With US Over Failure to Withdraw Troops

A truce among Iraqi Shi’ite militias ending attacks on US forces was meant to provide an opportunity for the government to finalize pullout talks. Leaders say that the militias are withdrawing from that truce now, and will resume attacks.

The militias had the impression that talks on future US presence would end with a pullout, but now say they view the government’s efforts as showing a “lack of seriousness.” Once again, the militias believe they have to try to force the US out.

Iraq was keen to broker this deal to avoid further proxy fights in their country. Now that it’s collapsed, and the US shows no signs of willingly leaving, there is again a risk that the US will spin this as Iranian action against them.

In reality, the militias in question are only nominally aligned with Iran, as those who were big Iran-linked factions were under orders to not attack the US already, and these were smaller, or less influential militias that were attacking on their own. Iran had been complaining about that already, and while the US will likely scapegoat Iran for anything going wrong in Iraq, as is standard procedure, Iran likely will accuse these groups of being in league with someone else.