Alwaght- After Washington launched a fresh propaganda campaign against Iran’s aviation industry spearheaded by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who called on Wednesday for all countries to halt flights and airport services for Iranian passenger planes, Iraq’s initial move to cancel flights to and from Iran triggered a wave of backlash at home, from public opinion to elites and politicians alike.
In a surprising measure, Najaf International Airport announced the suspension of all inbound and outbound flights to and from Iran starting Friday, September 25, until further notice, citing “official directives issued by competent authorities.
Even earlier, following the decision to suspend flights at Baghdad International Airport, all arrivals and departures to and from Iran were grounded at Erbil and Sulaymaniyah airports as well.
Close political ties and geographic proximity, religious affinity and unbreakable historical and cultural bonds, extensive economic partnership and wide-ranging border exchanges and heavy citizen traffic, all these factors combined to create a sense of surprise at Iraqi officials’ swift and explicit embrace of the air embargo, sparking widespread reaction in Baghdad and Shiite holy cities, especially Najaf.
The fallout can be examined on two levels: the symbolic and political message, and the economic pressure that is the Treasury Department’s primary target. These are two dimensions that have not affected relations between the two countries at one level.
Financial and economic aspects of the flights suspension
Regarding the financial and economic outcomes of the move, it should be noted that according to official data, over 60 percent of the inbound and outbound flights of Iran are to and from Iraq, which is a considerable figure. According to Hormatullah Rafee, the head of Iranian travel and tourism agencies syndicate, in the present time, over 3 million flights are conducted to Iraq from Iran annually, excluding the Arbaeen flights. About 3.5 million flights are conducted from Iraq to Iran.
Though canceling such a big number of flights deals a heavy blow to the aviation industry of the two neighbors, the reality is that the main and certain weight of trade between the two countries is on the shoulder of land routes, and so canceling the flights does not meaningfully impact their vast economic and trade ties. Bilateral trade exceeded $10 billion in 2025, with the bulk of it consisting of Iranian exports to Iraq, including foodstuffs, energy, consumer goods and services.
Still, if the flight suspension drags on, it will surely inflict losses on religious tourism, medical tourism and the hotel industry, particularly on the Iraqi side. After all, travelers who fly to Iraq tend to be hotel patrons, unlike the lower-income pilgrims who opt for overland and rail routes to visit the holy shrines.
Symbolic aspect and political and propaganda impacts
But concerning the symbolic aspect and political and propaganda effects, this hurried and incalculated move by the government of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaydi regarding announcing alignment with the illegal embargo on the Iranian aviation industry has caused serious implications. The decision not only runs counter to the traditional approach of Iraq to maintain a balance between the US pressures and its national interests in its relationship with Iran, but also can can bear witness to the submission to the American pressures, which signals weakness of of national sovereignty of Iraq.
In this context, Iraqi political figures and groups, including former Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Faleh al-Khazali of the Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades, Hadi al-Amiri (whose Badr Organization counts Transport Minister Wahhab Salman Mohammed al-Hasani, the official overseeing the aviation file, among its ranks), Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi, secretary-general of the al-Nujaba Movement, and Hussein al-Mousawi, the movement’s deputy secretary-general for media affairs, have bluntly branded the decision a mistake, a surrender of national sovereignty and a capitulation to American diktat. They stressed that Iran has stood by Iraq at critical junctures, facilitating the safe passage of Iraqi oil through the Strait of Hormuz, supplying gas to Iraq’s power plants, and keeping its borders open for trade and defense support, and that the proper response to such solidarity is not to join the embargo but to show gratitude and preserve the strategic relationship with the Islamic Republic.
Additionally, threats to stage sit-ins at airports and warnings about the decision’s economic and social fallout suggest the flight cancellation could become a flashpoint for internal tensions in Iraq and fuel discontent with the al-Zaydi’s government’s performance.
Therefore, Baghdad's move can create a question about the the independence in decision-making of the country, a question that, if the embargo against Iran continues by the government, will likely have broader outreach. If the halt of flights causes serious disruption in travel of patients, students, and pilgrims, the social pressure on the government for a settlement will build up.
That same alarm, sparked by the sheer scale of the backlash, prompted the al-Zaydi’s government to soften the tone and calm public opinion by announcing it would seek an exemption in talks with Washington, a softer stance than its initial response to the US sanctions move.
The reality is that Tehran-Baghdad relations cannot be defined merely through the framework of formal government ties. Religious and historical bonds, the sheer volume of citizen traffic, the presence of Iraqi students in Iran, religious tourism, medical travel and border trade have forged a web of connections that no administrative decision to halt flights can sever. Iraq’s ambassador to Tehran, too, stressed after the crisis erupted that the two countries’ ties run deep and that this temporary rupture should not affect bilateral relations.
So, while Washington seeks to raise the cost for foreign companies and airports of cooperating with Tehran by sanctioning Iran’s aviation industry, Iraq’s experience over the past few days has shown that enforcing such a policy in a country like Iraq can carry direct political consequences for the host government.
The Americans may manage to ban services to Iranian airlines in other countries by threatening with imposing secondary sanctions, but this pressure necessarily does not mean it can go ahead with the Iraqi society and political structure accepting it without any costs. The US faces a country for whom Iran is not merely a trade partner or a foreign ravel destination, rather, it is a neighbor sharing long borders and deep network of historical and religious relations with Iraq.
