You are very very right about the Pan-Arab nationalism of these three states -- Egypt and Syria were part of the Arab Republic in the 50s and have very similar flags. And in Iraq's case we had a dilemma -- Saddam promoted religious tolerance -- the Chaldean christians were treated pretty well by him -- example Tariq Aziz, as long as people followed him blindly, he didn't care about their religious affiliations. But they are ARAB Christians. SAddam, like most Sunni Arabs strongly dislike Persians (memories of centuries of conquest) and the Shia heresy. Kurds are related to the Iranis, so hence his paranoia. in the case of Syria, Christians are treated very very well -- as are the few Jews remaining there (strange, but true). and there are very few ethnic minorities.
However, in the case of Egypt, christians ARE second class citizens now under Hosni Mubarak's dwindling power
Egypt Syria
Iraq
Iranians were never Arabs and inspite of the loose cultural spin by the reigning Mullahs, Iranians have never become Arabs.
True, the first thing they did after converting was to set up their own state and to become Shias to distinguish themselves from the Sunni ARabs. Maybe that was a conscious decision?
In fact, pre-1979 Iranians consistently prided themselves on their ethnical divide with those in the region. Even after '79 during the Iran-Iraq wars every single Arab country joined their Arab brothers in Iraq to crush the enemy Persians.
Correct again-- the Sauds in particular are sh** scared that the Persians will wake up again and reconquer the place -- they evern renamed the Persian gulf to the Arabian gulf. For the same reason the Arabs dislike the Turks.
The prejudice between Arabs and Iranians is strong and deep. Persian Satellite TV lambasts Arabs on a regular basis. There are popular political commentators like Shahram Homayoun, and Zia Atabay who talk of Arabs like they're the dirt of the earth. These comments not only accepted within the community, but often times praised.
Bud, I lived in Bahrain for some time -- and it's got a huge Irani population. It's also a pretty liberal society (where else can you see Arab and Irani women in Mini-skirts, and trust me, in beauty they are far far better than many American women!). Anyway, there's a causeway built between the Saudi Mainland and Bahrain and every Thursday tons of Saudis come across to enjoy the good life -- booze and women. And every Thursday the locals grumble that hte saudi savages are coming across. Saudis are mostly despised in the rest of ARabia -- not only in Bahrain but also in Oman and Jordan. I don't know about the Egyptian feelings but I'd guess they are the same
The vast Persian-Arab divide is something majority of Americans do not understand. I was talking to someone who's father was a mid-east analyst. Even he kept saying "Muslims" will never get along there will always be a geebeho and jeebeeho ethnic divide, the level of understanding of the historical aspects of the region is astonishing.. to say the least.
Well, there has always been animosity between Semitics and Aryans -- the Iranis are more closely related to both Europeans and Indians than they are related to the Semitic Arabs.
Most Americans don't even get the ethnic and religious diversity in the entire swathe of land from Greece to the phillipines. Take the Caucasus for example -- Ossetians are related to the Persians, as are the Azerbaijanis and Kurds. But the Ossetians are Orthodox Christians. The Chechens, Ingush and Dagestanis are a distinct people, unrealted to others. The ABhkhazians are also a distinct people. THe Georgians and Armenians have common history at many points but are subtly different.
Iraq has Aryan Kurds to the north (in the former Turkish province of Mosul), Arab Sunnis around Baghdad (Turkish province of BAghdad) and Shia Arabs to the South (Turkish province of Basra), all put together in an unwieldy group by the Brit who wanted the oil fields int he north and south united.
The Iranis, have a large Azeri population to the north-west, they have ARabs to the south-west, Persians in the centre, Turks to the north and Baluchis to the south east
The Baluchis again, are NOT Iranis, but more an Indic people. If you move further to the north, you'll see the mixture of ethnic and religious groups in AFghanistan: The Tajiks are Irani, the Uzbeks, Turkmen, etc. are Turkic, the Hazaras are Mongol, descendents of Genghiz Khan's Golden Horde while the Pashtuns and Baluchis are Indic people
And then you get to an even more complicated, ethnic, religious, secatrian, linguistic etc. etc. mix-- India. I can't even fathom the mixture they have there, so, I'll just post the linguistic map -- or at least for the officially recongnised 15 odd languages (with a few hundred other non-recognized languages not depicted)
And the religious split:
