BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 1. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has described the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq as a “historic victory”, while calling for an end to Washington’s wider military presence in West Asia.
In a statement carried by Iran’s ISNA news agency, the IRGC said the US military presence in the region had contributed to instability and should come to an end.
“The US must leave the region and leave security management to the nations themselves,” the IRGC said. “The experience of two decades of occupation has shown that the US presence not only did not bring security, but was itself the source of insecurity, terrorism, and instability in West Asia.”
The IRGC also highlighted what it described as the human and financial costs of the US military campaign and occupation in Iraq. It said that, even according to figures acknowledged by Washington, the campaign resulted in about 5,000 US military deaths and cost around $4 trillion, while arguing that the actual figures were higher.
“After twenty years of military intervention, with about five thousand deaths, according to its own admission, of course, not the real figures, and four trillion dollars in costs, the US was expelled at the height of hatred and resentment of the Iraqi people,” it added.
