The United States has responded with a variety of airstrikes against militants in Iraq, which have repeatedly been condemned as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani. These initial strikes were a sign that the United States has failed to pacify Iraq and win over "the hearts and minds" of the country, but they were still in line with past U.S. actions.

However, things changed on January 4 when the United States killed a Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) deputy commander named Mushtaq Talib al-Saidi of the Harakat al-Nujaba militia, right next to a Ministry of the Interior complex. The PMF, a collection of Shia militias, are part of Iraq's armed forces. This means that more than twenty years after the invasion of Iraq, the United States has not even managed to create an Iraqi government that it does not feel compelled to bomb. It seems as if the American presence in the country could be close to ending (to no one's surprise) in abject failure.