Tehran presses Baghdad to lift aviation curbs that were written in Washington

Al Jazeera reported on 2 October that Iran has called on Iraq to remove flight curbs imposed in the wake of US sanctions, describing the dispute as a strain on relations between the two governments. The Files has not retrieved the individual article or the name and title of the Iranian official who made the demand, and does not quote one. Four days earlier, on 28 September, the Reuters photographer Alaa Al-Marjani photographed demonstrators outside Najaf International Airport protesting American restrictions on Iranian aviation and their effect on Iran–Iraq flights. That is a photographed event rather than a claim, and it locates the cost precisely: Najaf and Baghdad run a pilgrimage air economy, and the traffic that stops is religious tourism before it is anything else.

The second half of the story is in Washington, not Baghdad. FDD’s 2 October brief flags a policy paper by Bridget Toomey titled “Washington Decides Complete Ban on Iran-Iraq Flights Is Not Worth the Political Cost” — a hawkish think tank arguing against the administration’s choice, which is evidence that a shift is being debated, not evidence that one has occurred. The context is a war that has not stopped: GlobalSecurity’s daily operational report logged Day 217 on 2 October, carrying a CGTN report the same day that President Trump called renewed strikes on Iran after the midterms “possible” as ceasefire talks stall, and an Al Arabiya item of 1 October, sourced to Axios, that Secretary of State Rubio ordered an Iranian delegation including Abbas Araghchi to leave the country.

Assessment: Tehran’s demand was addressed to Baghdad and aimed past it. Iraq did not write the sanctions and cannot repeal them; what Iraq can do is carry the complaint into Washington’s licensing process, where FDD’s objection suggests the argument is already half-lost. If the restriction erodes, Zaidi collects a concession he never negotiated and Iran collects a precedent that Iraqi pressure moves American policy. Watch for a quiet licensing adjustment rather than an announcement — the form the relief takes will say more than the relief. Treat the Axios-sourced expulsion item as a report of a report until a second outlet carries it.