This is an interesting story by an NCF member who is very much one of the team - Mr Martin Bell - This was published at the time of the Iran - UK crisis over HMS Cornwall and really does give an opportunity to "see things from an Iranian perspective":
The confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at the head of the Persian Gulf has two names; the Coast of the Arabs is called shat al a'rab in Arabic and arvandr??d in Farsi, the main language of Persia, now modern day Iran.
The two races have been fighting over it for centuries, but in 1896, British forces invaded the adjoining south west region of Persia - Iran - and established a protectorate the British called Arabistan.
Apart from being inhabited mainly by Arabs, Arabistan or Khuzestan as the Persians called it, also happened to have 90 per cent of Persia's crude oil reserves and, while the British understood its strategic importance, the Persians had no idea.
To them it was a smelly sulphurous dump inhabited by Arabs who spoke a different language.
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