Within days of new American sanctions targeting Iranian aviation, Mahan Air suspended its flights to Turkey and Oman — a swift and telling contraction that reveals how economic pressure, when precisely applied, can sever a nation's connections to the wider world almost overnight. The routes lost are not merely business lines but threads in the fabric of Iran's international presence, each one representing commerce, movement, and the quiet diplomacy of ordinary travel. What is unfolding in Iran's skies is an old story told in modern terms: the slow grounding of a country's reach, one suspended