https://crsreports.congress.gov
Updated August 21, 2025
Iraq
The Republic of Iraq (Figure 1) sits at an intersection
within the Middle East region, with ties to Iran, Turkey, the
Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula shaping its interests,
constraints, and opportunities. Iraq is emerging from
decades of strife and conflict, and U.S.-Iraq security
cooperation continues amid strains imposed by regional
tensions. Thousands of U.S. troops remain in Iraq at the
government’s invitation to support shared counterterrorism
objectives. A period of relative stability and prosperity has
prevailed in Iraq since political leaders settled a tumultuous
dispute over government formation after the 2021 national
election. Iraq’s leading Shia and Sunni Arab and ethnic
Kurdish parties are competing within and across communal
lines in advance of the next national election, set for
November 2025.
Ongoing competition for influence in Iraq between outside
powers, especially neighboring Iran and the United States,
complicates Iraqi decision making. Related pressures have
increased since October 2023; Iran-aligned Iraqi armed
groups launched a campaign of attacks through 2024
against Israel and on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria in the
context of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Since 2024,
Israel-Iran conflict and U.S. strikes on Iran have resulted in
greater international attention to Iraq’s orientation and
sovereignty. The collapse of the Iran-backed Asad
government in Syria rekindled Iraqi concerns about Syria-
based terrorism threats and altered the context for planned
changes to U.S. and coalition military operations in Iraq.
U.S. military forces remain deployed in Iraq to provide
advice and aid to Iraqi security forces, including the
peshmerga forces of the federally recognized Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG). U.S. plans jointly developed
with Iraqi security officials are providing for the relocation
and consolidation of U.S. forces in Iraq as counter-Islamic
State coalition operations come to an end. Iraqi and U.S.
officials have stated their intent to continue security
cooperation and training on an enduring bilateral basis.
Some U.S. diplomatic personnel temporarily departed from
Iraq in June 2025, as tensions involving Iran increased.
Following U.S. strikes against nuclear targets in Iran in
June 2025, several unclaimed drone attacks in Iraq have
targeted locations in the Kurdistan region and some sites
hosting U.S. troops. The 119
th
Congress may consider
developments in Iraq and Iraq’s relationships with its
neighbors as Members review the Trump Administration’s
FY2026 requests for U.S. security assistance and foreign
aid for Iraq and planned changes to the deployment of U.S.
forces in Iraq and Syria. Members also may consider steps
to shape U.S.-Iraq security cooperation and economic ties,
influence relations between Iraq’s national government and
the KRG, and monitor the rights of Iraqi religious and
ethnic minorities.
Figure 1. Iraq
Sources: CRS, using ESRI and U.S. State Department data.
Background
Iraqis have persevered through intermittent wars, internal
conflicts, sanctions, displacements, terrorism, and political
unrest since the 1980s. The legacies of the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq continue to shape U.S.-Iraq relations: the
invasion ended the decades-long rule dictatorial rule of
Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party but ushered in a
period of chaos, violence, and political transition from
which the country struggled to emerge. U.S. forces
withdrew in 2011, but conflict in neighboring Syria and
divisive sectarianism in Iraq enabled IS insurgents to seize
and exploit much of northwestern Iraq from 2014 to 2018.
Iraqis leveraged new U.S. and coalition military support to
defeat the Islamic State, but Iran’s influence in Iraq also
grew during this period as several Shia militia groups
mobilized and later were consolidated into the national
security apparatus under the Popular Mobilization Forces.
As of 2025, IS threats in Iraq have diminished, but some
remnants of the group remain active in remote areas,
including disputed territories between the Kurdistan region
and areas to the south secured by national government
forces. Joint Iraqi-U.S. operations have targeted IS leaders
in Iraq since 2024, with several senior figures eliminated.
IS fighters also are active in eastern Syria, where U.S.-
backed partner forces are negotiating with Syria’s interim
authorities while detaining thousands of IS fighters and IS-
associated persons, including Iraqis awaiting repatriation.
As conflict inside Iraq has receded, opportunity has
emerged for many Iraqis, but unresolved domestic issues,
