On Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 3:44:41 PM UTC-7, sf wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2015 08:04:04 -0700, gtr > wrote:
>
> > I went to school in Oklahoma in the late 60's and there were many
> > Iranians students there, mostly studying petrol engineering. They
> > *always* referred to themselves as Persians. They spoke with great
> > loathing of the Shah, and great disgust with the USA for propping him
> > up. 10 years later they spoke with disgust about how we supported
> > Iraq's border war with them--but still called themselves Persians. Now
> > they have about 80 years of complaints--all of them predicated on
> > America's love for Saudi oil and deference to Saudi paranoia--but still
> > call themselves Persians.
>
> Do you blame them? They've been trying to crawl out from under
> shariia law since 1928, but the West keeps pulling the rug out from
> under them. We ousted a democratically elected government and
> installed the Shah back in 1941 - and they have been unstable ever
> since.
>
> They are the most educated people of all that middle eastern mess and
> even better, they don't treat their female population the way Saudis
> treat theirs. Given a fighting chance, they will move into the 21st
> century while the rest of them move backward to the 800's. I'm
> praying for Afghanistan, but they are in the grip of ISIS and I don't
> have much hope.
> >
> > I've concluded it's like a Brazilian calling themselves Cariocas or
> > something. Iran is a country populated by Persians.
>
>
> --
>
> sf

Persians are not Arabs. Distinct different blood lines. Most Persians did not follow the religion of Islam, the old religion was Zoroastrianism.
Well-to-do Persians sent their kids to the US after the fall of the Sha to get them away from the Muslim revolution. These people who are here really are Persians, not Arab Iranians. My company's owner is Persian. Came here, sent by his family, as a teenager. His family is still in Iran.