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Iranian secret services have large agents network in Azerbaijan
The former staff member of the Ministry of State Security of Azerbaijan Ilkham Yismail considers that the secret services of Iran as early as 1993 have placed in Azerbaijan a large net of agents, and at any moment they can organize provocations in Baku, online paper Day.az writes today. AIA already wrote today that the Iranian Minister of Intelligence and Security Mohseni-Ejei stated in a conversation with the press that "the instigators of disorders are located abroad, and we would force them to lose the faith in their tactics". According to the minister, the Foreign Ministry of Iran already required in several countries to suppress the "activity of instigators". At the same time he noted that the Iranian secret services would also study this matter.
There is a high probability that the Iranian secret services will act against the Iranian refugees and the dissidents also in Azerbaijan, furthermore problems could arise by the leaders of the Iranian Azerbaijani living in other countries. The secret services of Iran already have more vigorously concentrated on their work in the states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The regional activity of the secret services of Iran concerns, predominantly, the South Caucasian and Central Asian policy of the US, Day.az writes. Azerbaijani experts note that the representatives of Iran pay priority attention to the regional contacts of Americans in the political and military spheres, especially to the trips to the countries of the region of the representatives of the Pentagon, the CIA and the NATO headquarters.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=961

Whilst I think Ralph Peters article and before and after maps may have some merits for ‘other’ Middle East countries, I think he should learn more about Iran and its ethnic groups, languages (dialects), customs, traditions, etc. before he makes a statement such as this:

““Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan ….[Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again] !!, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.”

And then, there is this statement:

“.. But would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia..”

The Republic of Tajikistan also speaks a version of Persian language called ‘Dari’, similar to parts of Afghanistan, and has close historical affinity with Iran (Persia). Why has R.Peters left them out? Is it because he thinks ‘people’ want it that way or that Tajikistan is already an independent republic?

The issue isn’t redrawing the map of current Iran. The central issue, among other things, is governance and the current regime in Iran and its treatment of various ethnic groups including the Persians.

Here is a ‘start’ for learning a bit more about Iranian ethnic groups – for Ralph Peters:

http://www.iranchamber.com/people/iranian_ethnic_groups.php

“That map has been known to incite vicious arguments.
It's extremely unpopular with Iranians, and others, understandably so.”

Quite right.