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Saddam Hussein was relying heavily on Iran’s 2% Arab populace on the border with Iraq in Khuzestan (70% or more of Iran’s oil is located there), however, the Iranian Arabs fought harder against Saddam than even the Persians. No amount of Arab sentiment worked because they see themselves as Iranians first.

Here's the bottom line. As a poster above listed, there are Persians, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Circassians, Azerbaijanis, Baluchis, Copts, Assyrians, Phoenecians, Berbers, Chaldeans, and on and on. You'd have to be an anthropologist to keep them straight, and a lot of Americans have not chosen that to be their field of study. They're too busy earning a living for their families.

Americans are generally a “live and let live” bunch (always exceptions, so I'm not saying it's true of all Americans).The only ones who trouble us, and we therefore must learn more about, are the ones who want to destroy us. If the Copts are out to destroy us, that's news to me.

When it comes to most Arab countries, Persia and the Afgans/Paks, that's a distinction without a difference. When it comes to existential threats, we'll treat all comers equally (we're at war and in the end, we'll kill them, but only if we have to), which is where non-Americans seem to get this belief that we're ignorant.