Regardless, any PIC not landing at the nearest airfield when needed strictly for political reasons, should consider buying shredder and testing it with their airman certificate.
Clearly not true. As PIC I will take many bits of information into consideration of which geometrical proximity is but one. Airfield facilities, weather conditions, Approach aids available, familiarity with the airport, time required to start an approach v time needed to get there and many more. They pay me to make sensible decisions and make risk assessments, not to follow rules blindly. One thing is to continue for hours and quite another to choose a better airport 5 or 10 further minutes away. You are the PIC and you make the decision, no one is going to shred your license.
This crew decided to land in Iran and they must have their reasons, in hindsight I would have used the time they took on the hold to prepare for the approach to reach a better airport.