Iraq held a major military parade in Baghdad on Wednesday to mark the eighth anniversary of its victory over ISIS. December 10th has become a national holiday known as Victory Day, commemorating the December 9, 2017 declaration by then–Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that Iraqi forces had eliminated the last ISIS holdouts along the Syrian border. The announcement closed a three-and-a-half-year chapter in which Iraq came close to being overrun by the jihadist organization.
The parade, held inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, featured units from the Iraqi Army, Federal Police, Kurdish Peshmerga, Interior Ministry special tactical forces, and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Aerial flyovers by the Air Force accompanied the procession of armor, which included a mix of Russian T-90 tanks and U.S.-supplied M1A1 Abrams, underscoring the diverse origins of Iraq’s military equipment.
For many Iraqis, the victory over ISIS remains a symbolic testament to the country’s resilience and its path back toward national unity. The 2003 U.S. invasion, years of insurgency, and sectarian warfare left Iraq fractured, and the 2014 collapse of the U.S.-trained Iraqi Army—followed by ISIS seizing nearly a third of the country and threatening Baghdad—had raised serious doubts about the future viability of the Iraqi state.
Since then, the rebuilding of Iraq’s security institutions, combined with the mobilization of paramilitary groups such as the Peshmerga and the PMF, enabled a sustained campaign that eventually defeated ISIS. Despite ongoing tensions between ethnic and sectarian groups, a fragile governing coalition, and occasional flare-ups such as the 2017 conflict between Baghdad and Kurdish forces, Iraq has thus far maintained political and territorial cohesion.
Even with the defeat of ISIS, the United States has continued to justify its military presence in Iraq on counterterrorism grounds. Although Washington agreed last year to a phased withdrawal that saw most U.S. forces leave in the autumn, the Trump administration reversed course and announced that several hundred advisors would remain, citing what it described as a persistent ISIS threat.