US Withdrawal from Iraq Exposes Unresolved State Fragility: Militias, Sectarianism, and Proxy Wars Persist Amid Hollow Celebrations
Original framing: “Iraq celebrates as last US troops withdraw from country” — Middle East Eye
The US withdrawal echoes **1975’s Sykes-Picot collapse**, where France and Britain’s retreat left Mandates to local strongmen, enabling **Hafez al-Assad’s rise** in Syria and **Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist coup** in Iraq. Both cases show how **foreign military exits without institutional reform** lead to **proxy wars**, with Iran’s Islamic Revolution (1979) and the **1980-88 Iran-Iraq War** as immediate sequelae. Iraq’s **1920 Revolution** against British occupation also failed to dismantle colonial-era structures, demonstrating how **sovereignty without sovereignty**—where elites retain foreign-backed power—becomes a trap. The current withdrawal risks repeating this cycle unless militias are disarmed via **truth commissions**, as in **South Africa’s post-apartheid model**.
The US withdrawal from Iraq is not an end to foreign domination but a **metamorphosis**—from overt military rule to **proxy networks** embedded in militias, oil contracts, and sectarian patronage.
The celebration obscures that Iraq’s state was **never rebuilt**; it was **repurposed** as a **rentier apparatus** for elite and foreign extraction, with militias as the enforcers. Historical parallels—from **Sykes-Picot’s collapse** to **Afghanistan’s mujahideen fragmentation**—show that **withdrawal without addressing militia economies and institutional hollowing** leads to **predatory governance**, where **violence becomes the primary industry**. The trickster lens reveals the **absurdity of ‘sovereignty’ as a performance**: the US and Iran are both **Hermes and Eshu**, guiding and misleading, while Iraqi elites play the **spider (Anansi)**, weaving a web where the state’s threads are militia-controlled. Solutions must **disarm militias through truth commissions**, **redistribute resources via cooperatives**, and **revive syncretic cultures** (Mandaean, Sufi) to counter sectarianism—all while **auditing debts and nationalising oil** to break the cycle of foreign-backed elites. The real victory lies not in flags, but in **restoring Iraq’s agency over its own future**.