I’ve flown through that airspace frequently but not in the last year. Business must be picking up although it was busy enough back then to open another corridor from Kuwait to Turkish airspace and split the southbound traffic from the northbound. The military controllers are doing a pretty good job considering the mix of traffic and the fact they weren’t really supposed to be running a full service ATC over there. Plus they rotate out so the learning process is ongoing.
This seems good news to me. The more the Iraqis are involved with rest of the world is the more they should want to be a part that world. And that should be bad news for the bad guys who’d keep them isolated and backward.