{"id":865993,"date":"2026-09-30T15:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T15:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865993\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T15:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T15:20:12","slug":"h-r-mcmaster-on-the-unfinished-american-war-in-iraq-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865993\/","title":{"rendered":"H.R. McMaster on the unfinished American war in Iraq : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"President<\/p>\n

\n President Donald Trump speaks as Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster listens at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., in February 2017.<\/p>\n

Susan Walsh\/AP<\/p>\n

hide caption\n <\/p>\n

toggle caption<\/p>\n

Susan Walsh\/AP<\/p>\n

\"Vehicles<\/a> <\/p>\n

The last U.S. troops have left Iraq, more than two decades after the U.S.-led invasion and as the United States and Israel are at war with neighboring Iran.<\/p>\n

Iraq is marking the withdrawal as a restoration of sovereignty. Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who commanded U.S. troops in Iraq, says the timing could strengthen Iran and leave Iraq vulnerable to a resurgence of ISIS.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s not the right time,” McMaster told Morning Edition. “This is going to embolden, I think, the Iranians to a certain extent, and it’s not clear that there has been the enduring defeat of ISIS.”<\/p>\n

McMaster served 34 years in the Army and later became President Trump’s national security adviser during his first term. In 2005, he commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment during a major counterinsurgency campaign against al-Qaida<\/a> in Tal Afar, a city in northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border. He later helped shape U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.<\/p>\n

In his conversation with NPR’s Michel Martin, he said a continued U.S. presence helped with intelligence gathering and support for Iraqi forces fighting ISIS. He also said Iranian-backed militias operating outside Baghdad’s control remain a threat to Iraqi sovereignty.<\/p>\n

The U.S.-led invasion opened more than a decade of war and upheaval that exacted an enormous toll on Iraqis. At least 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, according to Iraq Body Count, a U.K.-based independent organization that tracks civilian deaths using morgue records and other documentation. Millions more were displaced during the war and its aftermath. <\/p>\n

Asked how the troops he led might view the withdrawal, McMaster said he hoped they would feel “tremendous pride.” He called their fight against al-Qaida in Iraq “a righteous mission.”<\/p>\n

Listen to the full live interview by clicking the blue button above. <\/p>\n

The digital version was edited by Treye Green.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump speaks as Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster listens at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-865993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}