The Last U.S. Troops Leave Iraq, and the Supreme Court Lets Third-Country Deportations Continue for Now

NPR reports that the U.S. has withdrawn its final troops from Iraq, leaving the defense future there uncertain. In the same roundup, NPR notes that the Supreme Court has sided — for now — with the Trump administration on third-country deportations. The qualifier is the load-bearing part: a temporary win leaves the underlying fight open rather than settled, and deportation policy in this form is operating on borrowed time until a fuller ruling arrives. The two items sit oddly together: one is a departure of American forces from a long-running theater, the other an expansion of American enforcement reach beyond its borders. Neither comes with a clear endpoint.