Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is scheduled to travel to Iran on Wednesday to meet with President Masoud Pezeshkian. The visit comes amid shared concerns over the Sunni radical group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the surprise December offensive that toppled Tehran’s key ally, Bashar al-Assad. Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, cut his teeth as a jihadi with al-Qaeda in Iraq and subsequently with the Islamic State in Syria, and is known to be deeply hostile to Iran and its Shiite ideology. 

The potential impact on Iraq’s stability has caused such anxiety that the Iraqi security establishment has floated the idea that the United States reconsider the nature and timeline of its planned troop withdrawal from Iraq. Three well-placed sources with close knowledge of the issue told Al-Monitor that US interlocutors have been asked to delay the exit. 

One such exchange took place during a Dec. 12 meeting between Iraq’s army chief, Abdel Amir Yarallah, and the commander of the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria, Maj. Gen. Kevin Leahy, according to one of the sources who, like others, sought anonymity in order to speak freely. Citing worries about an Islamic State (ISIS) resurgence and the new government in Damascus, Yarallah urged that US forces at the sprawling Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq’s predominantly Sunni al-Anbar province that borders Syria remain beyond September 2025, which is when they are scheduled to pull out under an agreement reached between Washington and Baghdad last year. 

Leahy said any such request would need to be relayed formally by Sudani, the source said. No such formal request had been made as of the time of publication of this article.