Although the flights to Iran only really benefited Iran, there were several reasons for the escape of the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) to Iranian airbases. Firstly, the day Saddam ordered the evacuation (26 January), the IQAF's strategy for meeting the Coalition was in shambles. The IQAF had planned for a campaign in which it could defend Iraqi airspace and launch strategic attacks upon Coalition targets like its carriers. The Coalition's destruction of the Iraqi radar network had rendered it difficult to intercept Coalition aircraft and the Saudi-based AWACs made counter-attacks outside of Iraq fruitless. The deployment of bunker-busting munitions meant that waiting it out in the hardened aircraft revetments was also not viable. Therefore the IQAF fell back on a strategy it honed in the Iran-Iraq War: basing advanced weaponry within neutral territory. IQAF aircraft did make the rounds in various Gulf states lest Iranian attacks destroy this expensive asset.

Here was where Iran came in because the threat of the Coalition had prompted a degree of rapprochement between Iran and Iraq. . Saddam began a correspondence with Iran's President Rafsanjani and signed a formal peace treaty with Iran on 15 August 1990. This led to a restoration of full diplomatic relations between the two states. Iran also was one of the few states in the region that actively condemned the US military presence. But neither side fully trusted one another.

Iraqi intelligence reports captured after 2003 show that condemning the US presence was not the same as accepting Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and the Iranians were leery of the changes in the balance of power. Furthermore, a number of Iraqis within the regime's leadership did not trust the Iranians and saw Iraq's overtures as a temporary expedient to gain diplomatic leverage. Saddam had expected that this detente would continue and his orders to the IQAF stressed that Iran would be a temporary stay until after the battle for Kuwait was settled. However, these advanced aircraft were almost immediately repainted in Iranian markings and Iran only acknowledged that it had received 22 IQAF aircraft, not the 137 that landed there. The return of IQAF aircraft became a sticking point in Iran-Iraq relations after 1991, and Saddam did not have any leverage to demand their return. The fact that the Iranians so swiftly took over their "guests'" equipment shows how shallow and deceptive the Iran-Iraq detente was in 1990/91