Iraq just reopened its border with Iran and defied American pressure to isolate Tehran

Iraq just reopened a border crossing with Iran. And America wanted it shut.

Here's the story. Iraq's Border Ports Authority opened the Sheeb crossing again this morning. It's in eastern Maysan province, on the border with Iran. It had been closed since technical improvements began around three weeks ago, officially to put in detection equipment and stop smuggling.

But a few days ago, Fuad Hussein, Iraq's Foreign Minister, said something that changes how you read this.

He said the US Treasury had asked Baghdad to shut almost every border crossing with Iran. Only two would stay open. One of them is in Iraq's Kurdistan Region.

Fuad Hussein says quote "the Americans are still demanding the closure of the crossings".

And Iraq reopened one anyway.

So why? Fuad Hussein's reasoning is money. He says Iraq has many official and unofficial crossings with Iran, and shutting all of them would hurt Iraq's own economy. Sheeb matters to the local economy in Maysan. Truck drivers and transport workers there held protest after protest through late October over the closure.

So Iraq is stuck between two sides pulling in opposite directions. Washington wants the border closed. Iraq's own border communities want it open. So do Iraq's Iran-aligned political factions. The Badr Organization, led by Hadi al-Amiri, has criticised Fuad Hussein's comments, saying closing crossings would besiege ordinary Iranian people.

But Iraq hasn't just ignored Washington either. The Border Ports Authority says it will shut a different crossing, Mandali in Diyala province, from this Friday, to finish its own technical work there. So one crossing closes as Sheeb reopens. That's partial compliance, not open defiance.