Many years ago, I went to a house to teach piano to the children, and was greeted with the most beautiful Christmas Tree and display of Christmas Symbols i had ever seen. The Mom was from Columbia, and the dad from Iran. It was also the end of Ramadan, Eid Al Ftr on the calendar.
I complimented the dad on the beautiful Christmas display and added “I know you are a Muslim, so what you have done for the kids and your wife was REALLY nice! And a Happy Eid to you.”
To which the dad replied, “That’s very kind of you, but I am a PERSIAN, not a Muslim. We PERSIANS don’t celebrate this Eid, but are forced to by the government. We PERSIANS only celebrate ONE Eid...the First Day of Spring. But thank you anyway.”
That was about fifteen years ago.
Most Iranians identify more with Europe than the Arab world, and they call themselves Persians.
It would be cool and quite a boost to the people there if Trump started calling them Persians.
The mullahs would go nuts.
In the 1980’s I worked with an Iranian electrical engineer; smart guy. He went back home around the time of the Iran/Iraq war to see his father who was dying of cancer. While there he got his draft notice so he immediately went to the airport to leave. At the airport they held him in custody to see if his name was on the draft roster. The roster was a day or two old so his name was not there so he was allowed to leave. He said if his name had been on the roster they would have taken him out back and shot him. His medical student brother had to pay lots of money to get smuggled over the mountains to Turkey and back to the US.