Roads to Iraq

WO THERE MULE WO THERE!!!!!!!!! you little Arabi chauvinist!!!!!! The “Iraqi victory over Iran”????????????? have you been eating too much camel turd??? you pathetic bastard. If that isnt a blatant lie I dont know what is, keep dreaming that Iraq was victorious over Iran. From the rest of the worlds angle it looked like Iraq was bankrupted and its infrastructure in shambles, and had to resort to the tanker wars and all kinds of support from the Arabs and Soviets and US to prevent Iran from breaking its back. The last message to Iran from the US was we will resort to anything , we will even bring down your Passenger planes, if you do not stop this war NOW!!!! The west started this war, and it forced it to end after both countries drained each others economy and as for Iraq a nation 1/5 the size of Iran its man power was stretched to the limit and its Moral weak from the beginning of the war. Iran however had no shortage of man power even though much of it was under trained and un skilled due to purges of expert officers during the revolution and religious fantaticism, but it still had a 60 million strong population with dedictated patriots during the early days of the war when Iran was on the defensive side, and dont feed me that rubbish about Iraq actually defending itself by attacking Iran and taking over khoramshahr, y ou lizard eater that is like the same excuse the US used to invade you and take a huge shit on your country. Do not sit there and make up a lie about iraq winning the war. Iran showed that Iraq could not win like it thought in 5 days as your tin pot dictator claimed, and forced it out of Iran after 1982. Iraq wanted to end the war after it saw it had no chance of winning against a commited adversary, but Iran refused and said its objective was to get to Karbala and overtrhow the baathist regime. If you want to claim not getting your throats slit and your baathist regime overthrown after 8 years of stalemate, victory then go ahead, you arabs worship mediocrity, and thrive in it!!!!! No wonder this shit you put up on this site does not qualify as news, and hence the reason google has stopped indexing it.

You can’t change history

in July, 1988, Iran was forced to accept a United Nations–mandated cease-fire.

link is here

LB
I used to go to the cinema in that park with my family. And my first dates with my boyfriend were in this park too, we had picnics with many other Iraqis who came there after work to let their kids play in the park and enjoy themselves.

HELL NO, THIS IS IRAQ
Malcom Lagauche
link is here
“Now, the well-known crossed-swords monument, Hands of Victory, is in the process of the first stages of its destruction in Baghdad. The monument was built to honor those Iraqis who fought in the Iran-Iraq War. This, like the al Mansour statue, is not a sectarian symbol. Many Shi’tes, Sunnis, Kurds and other portions of the Iraqi population, bravely fought against Iran, despite their backgrounds or political views. The Hands of Victory were meant to symbolize Iraq and Iraqis, not one particular segment.�?

I had Bakhtiaris, Qashqi turks , Turkomans, Arab Iranis, Farsi Iranis, Baluchis, Afghanis, Azaries, Mazandaranis, Lurs, all my brothers in arms fighting bravely along side me against Iraq. I still remember the liberation oF khormashahr in the bait al moghadas amaliat. We all fought bravely never flinching once because of the presence of death at every second. When we cought Iraqi prisioners, they bent down and said Dakhelan ya Ali Dakhelan ya ali. These were the same Iraq soilders who were burrowed and bunkered down like rats in out proud city of khoramshahr, and who raped many of the women of that proud city. We gave our blood and life for Iran and will never allow any invader to take our land and heritage. That we showed to the world and Iraq in 1982 when we liberated our proud city and nation from their invading hordes

If anyone is interested in some videos on this war, here is a good one

May 1982, Iran-Iraq War frontlines - Operation Beitol Moghaddas - Iraqi troops are scattered and hidden, which results in a most chaotic clearance of bunkers; when enemy ammo is captured, troops call out to others to re-supply if given the opportunity (0:34) - An enemy Field Telephone system is found at the back of of truck (1:26) - A group of Iraqi soldiers exit one of the bunkers that had earlier been under 106mm RCL and RPG-7 fire and surrender (one of the Iraqi soldiers repeats “Dkhelan Ya Ali,” the Iranian company commander tells his men to treat this PW with extra respect) - Toward the end, you see laying on ground one of many brave combatants that was fatally injured, to whom his last rights were being administered (in Islamic fashion); the voice of the war correspondent changes to a somber tone (this part of the clip was at the time censored, and was not originally shown) - Iranian troops would soon reach the ultimate goal: Khorramshahr itself

link is here

War
A war story for children
History of the Iran-Iraq War for my granddaughter

Mazloom
August 23, 2006
iranian.com

I have a grand daughter who is five-years and nine-months old, and going thirty-six. She is very smart. She watches a lot of DVDs with her brothers, sometimes the same movie several times. Her favorite is Phantom of the Opera (watches that one without her brothers). She can recite some of the lyrics in that movie. She has a great vocabulary to a point that sometimes it is hard to tell that she is just a kid. One day while I was babysitting them, they wanted to watch a movie that was rated PG-13, so I said this movie is not appropriate for children under thirteen. She said, “Grandpa we are not children!” She also likes to paint, and draws very quickly and uses bright colors in her painting. I was thinking how would it be if I ever told her a story of a war that happened in a strange land, long time ago. So, I wrote this story. I hope you like it.

This is a story of a war that happened long, long time ago. When grandpa was very young he lived in a country called Iran. Back then people in Iran, or anywhere else, did not have computers yet. Many of them didn’t even have a television, that’s how long ago it was. So, for entertainment they went to mosques, jeleseh, or rozeh khoni. Mosque is a place where people go to pray and exercise. jeleseh is like a meeting, and rozeh khoni is like singing a sad story song. In those places people did not talk about their king, because they were scared of him. The king had a secret organization called SAVAK, which is a short name for Security Agency of Very Awful Killers. If SAVAK found out that anyone had talked bad about the king, they would arrest him, and make him sit on eggs. That’s how bad they were.

So, instead of talking about the king in those days, people talked about Imam Hussein and Imam Zamon. Imam Hussein is from the past. In the sad story of Imam Hussein, he was trying to bring justice to this world, but he gets killed at the end, like Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart. He died in a hot place called Karbala in Iraq, in an unfair battle. That made people very sad, and they cried a lot for him. The story is so sad that some people wish to die just the way he did. If you heard the story you would get sad too and cry, that’s why I’m not going to tell it to you.

On the other hand Imam Zamon is a futuristic Imam, and for him to come to earth there has to be an Armageddon first. You know what Armageddon is, right, like in the movie Terminator where there is a big war and everything gets destroyed in the future. That’s what was going to happen in Iran, a big war was coming, but back then Terminator movie was not made yet, that’s how long ago it was. If it was made back then, people might have gone to see it and had a better understanding of what horrible things were going to happen to them in the future, that is if they had any money to go to the movies in the first place. Back then, most people were so poor they couldn’t afford to go to the movies.

People knew Imam Hussein was dead for sure because rozeh khonha, those people who sang the sad story song, made sure everyone knew it, and Imam Zamon was going to come in the future. So, They wished for another Imam in their own time. Some one who could take them to Karbala so they could die over there like Imam Hussein. So, they wished and wished till their wish came true. They wished for their king to leave, so he left. At the same time they wished for an Imam to come, so one day a big airplane landed and an Imam appeared coming down the stairway of the big airplane that had flown almost from the other side of the world. His name was Imam Khomeini. He had many titles, but a lot of people just called him Imam. They chose to call him Imam because he was very crafty like a wizard. I am going to call him Khomeini in this story, because I don’t want to confuse you with the other Imams.

In the beginning when Khomeini did not have any power, he had many men with different opinions around him. But as his power grew bigger and bigger he got rid of those men one by one till there was nobody left around him accept the ones that were very obedient to him. Some of the men that he didn’t get a chance to kill escaped to other parts of the world, and still after all these years they say he was a bad man. On the other hand, the men that Khomeini liked and kept for himself always told him his robe was very pretty, even though some of them didn’t even like his robe.

When Khomeini was coming down the big airplane stairway he was very tired. Other passengers in the airplane had talked all day when they were flying and did not let him get any rest, so he was very grouchy. When he was coming down the stairway some one asked him what his feeling was about returning to Iran after all those years, away in another country. He said: “Nothing!�? That’s right, he said “Nothing!�? because he was very tired and grouchy and wanted to get some rest as soon as he could, without wanting to say anything else. This was a bad omen, a bad sign. As soon as he said “Nothing!�? instead of saying: “I am very glad to be back�?, some people got very frightened and started to shiver and shake. They immediately began to gather their belongings and leave the country, but in their minds, after all these years, they are still stock in that day and wish they had never left. But for every person who left there were many people that didn’t leave. They didn’t care what Khomeini had said. They loved their country so much that they decided to stay no matter what, but some of them paid a big price for staying. Some of them were murdered, some of them went to prison, some of them couldn’t find a good job, and some of them never got married and never had any children.

Very soon Khomeini’s power grew so much that he became the most powerful man in the country. He became so powerful that he called himself the “Supreme Leader�?. He told people they should not play chess or listen to music any more. He even told soccer players not to play in their shorts anymore, and to wear pants and long sleeve shirts. He even told girls not to go to soccer matches and look at soccer players. That’s how powerful he had become.

Having so much power even surprised Khomeini himself because in his wildest dreams he did not imagine one day he could have so much power. So, he decided to expand his power to other parts of the world, and to tell other people not to play chess and listen to music, and kick the ball only when they were wearing pants. That’s how power crazy he had become.

The nearest place where he could take over right away was in a country called Iraq. Khomeini lived in exile in a city in Iraq called Najaf for twelve years before returning to his own country. Najaf is near a big river called the Euphrates River. When Khomeini lived in Najaf he never went to spend any time by the river, not even to take his children there. He was not interested to learn about his neighborhood back then, but now that he had become a powerful man he wanted to have all the neighborhoods in Najaf for himself. When he was living in Najaf, all he wanted to do was to read books, walk to school, and teach them to his students. But I think it’s not good just to read books and work all the time without having any fun. It’s better to take a break and go by the big river and have a picnic, even if it’s for a few hours. Khomeini thought I will change the ruler of Iraq, and then I will go by the river and have a picnic, if I ever have any time.

Saddam Hussein was the ruler of Iraq back then, but because I don’t want to confuse him with Imam Hussein, from now on I am going to call him Saddam only. That’s what every body calls him anyway. At first Saddam wanted to be friendly to Khomeini so he sent his emissaries, you know what emissaries mean, don’t you? Emissaries is like in the movie Star War, like representatives, Hmmm, I know, he send his clones to the capital of Iran to tell Khomeini that he wants to be friends, and not be enemies. But Khomeini wanted to see the Euphrates River and expand his empire, and not to let people over there to play music, so he ignored the words of the clones and told his man in Iraq to say that Saddam was no good. That made Saddam mad and killed some of those men that insulted him. So, Khomeini’s man in Iraq got mad and killed some of Saddam’s men. Finally Saddam had enough of these disobediences among his men and decided to invade Iran and put an end to all of this. One day Saddam gathered all his generals in a war room and asked them their opinions about invading Iran. They all told him that they would take over a big part of Iran in two days.

So, Saddam said: “Great, let mother of all battles began.�?

But his generals were too busy talking about their war plans that they didn’t hear him.

Finally one of his generals asked: “What did you say Your Excellency?�?

Saddam said: “Attack, Attack�?. Almost like he was barking at them.

They heard him loud and clear this time.

And that is how the war started.

At first Saddam’s army advanced into Iran very quickly, but what Saddam didn’t know was that Iranians had many brave soldiers that didn’t care about Khomeini, but were willing to fight very hard for their country. So, they stood up to Saddam’s army till his army could not advance any more. The fighting went on for two years and many soldiers were killed on both sides, till Saddam’s army was completely pushed out of Iran. But Khomeini was thinking I have never seen the big Euphrates River and I don’t mind visiting there, and expand my empire. He told his soldiers to fight till Saddam was defeated. He told his soldiers that the road to Jerusalem goes through Karbala. You probably don’t know what that means, so I’ll explain it.

Far away from Karbala there is another city called Jerusalem that Khomeini wished to visit but he couldn’t because there was another war over there too, between Israelis an Palestinians. Jerusalem is very important to a lot of people in the world, so they always fight over who should have it for themselves. It’s like you and your brothers fight over a toy, except you and your brothers love each other, so you don’t really fight very hard. As a matter of fact you guys don’t even fight, you just don’t agree who should play with the toy. But over there in Jerusalem people are enemies and they hate each other, so they fight very hard. Some times Israeli children write nasty notes on bombs and send them to the Palestinian side to kill their children, and sometimes some one from Palestinian side goes to the Israeli side and blows himself up to kill their children. That’s how much they hate each other, that’s why I never want you to live in Jerusalem. But over there in Jerusalem, people on both sides were allowed to play music; and Khomeini didn’t like that. So, he told his soldiers we are going to Jerusalem, and we will tell them not to play music.

Khomeini had never played music or soldier in his life, not even for a day when he was a boy, but now that he was a powerful man he made himself in charge of the military, but still didn’t play music. One day he even said I don’t know who Beethoven is. Can you imagine that?

Khomeini told his men they have to take this road that passes through Karbala and go to Jerusalem, but he didn’t tell them the whole truth, that Jerusalem was very far away. It was so far away that there were several other countries in between Karbala and Jerusalem. Before they could reach Jerusalem, Depending on which road they took, they could go to Syria, Lebanon, Arabia, Egypt, or Jordan (that’s the place where Michael Jordan got his name from). But their most favorite road was from Karbala to Syria, to Lebanon, and then to Jerusalem, because they were thinking Syrian are our allies, and we go help Lebanese fight Israelis. But Khomeini didn’t tell his soldiers that they had to go to those other counties first, because his soldiers might think well that is too far and we are tired already, and become grouchy like Khomeini when he was coming down the airplane.

Mean while Israeli generals were thinking if these guys want to come to Jerusalem let them come because while they are coming they will destroy our enemies and themselves at the same time. So they were very happy that Khomeini was coming. They were so happy that they even sold him some weapons and equipments so they can continue fighting with each other.

Khomeini tried for six more years to go to Jerusalem but only moved a few feet forward. Saddam soldiers did not want to lose the road to Jerusalem because that was part of their country, so they fought very hard. By now he had figured out that he had made a big mistake messing with Khomeini, and tried several time to say I don’t want to fight anymore, and say he was sorry for what he had done. But grown up people don’t just come out and say I am sorry like children do; instead, to make up, they give money to the enemy. Saddam was very sorry so he offered to give lots of money to Khomeini. Other countries that were friendly to Saddam and didn’t like Khomeini also agreed to give money to him to stop the war. They agreed to give a lot of money which means they were very sorry, but Khomeini wanted to visit the big Euphrates River and go to Jerusalem, and tell the people over there to stop playing music so bad that he told his soldiers to keep fighting. If anyone said I am tired of fighting and want to listen to music for a change, Khomeini would put him in jail, whip him, or kill him.

Towards the end, war became so nasty that it was hard to tell who was doing what to whom. But at the end Saddam told his soldiers to send missile to Iran’s capital, Tehran, which is a very large city with millions of people living in it. Tehran was too far away from battlefields, and people did not usually see any fighting except on television. Saddam told his soldiers to send missiles to Tehran, and other big cities as far as they could reach, that way people get scared and don’t want to fight anymore. As a matter of fact this was exactly the plan Khomeini had in mind for Iraqis, except he told his soldiers to send missiles to Iraqi cities and the people of those cities would rise up against Saddam and defeat him, but the Iraqis didn’t want to defeat Saddam in that way. They wanted to keep the road to Jerusalem for themselves, because that was part of their country.

When Saddam’s missile exploded in Tehran they made big sounds, broke window glasses, and caused a lot of damage but only in small areas. The damage was more sociological, that means the bombs scared the people. Most daddies living in Tehran told their children and their mommies to go back to their small hometowns and live with their grandparents, aunts, or uncles for a while, because it was safer over there. Then, any time they got a chance, the daddies asked their boss for vacation and went to visit their families in their small hometowns. That is why the big cities became empty all of a sudden. Some people even went to camp in wooded hills near Tehran. So many people left the big city that air pollution cleared up, and if you were on a hill you could see for miles and miles. That’s when some people saw Damavand Mountain for the first time in their lives, because the air was so clean. There were almost nobody left in Tehran to make air pollution any more. Nobody has ever seen cleaner skies ever since.

Khomeini’s man were telling him there is nobody working any more, so we are not making any money, and if we don’t make any money we can’t go to Jerusalem. So Khomeini finally said go get me some poison to drink, but make sure it’s not too strong to kill me. So, he drank the cup of poison and accepted the truce. He did it that way because he wanted to say: “I did it, but I really didn’t want to do it.�?

That’s how the war ended, but this is not the end of the story yet because when Khomeini drank the poison he became really mad and ordered the execution of thousands of people in prisons, just because he didn’t like them. In his poisoned mind he thought one day those people might get out of prisons and try to kill him. He told his executioners to ask the prisoners some questions, and if their answers were any different than his to kill them. That’s exactly what the executioners did because they were scared too. Some of those prisoners hadn’t even done a bad thing in their lives. The only thing that they had done was to disagree with Khomeini and the way he was ruling over the country; and that they didn’t want to make their answers the same as Khomeini’s.

Khomeini died less than a year after he drank from the poisoned cup. Some people say he was punished at the end because of all the bad things he had done in his life, because he was very old and sick. But that is not true. Good people or bad people get old and sick and die all the time. He had the best doctors in the country taking care of him. Only poor people who cannot afford to go to doctor suffer when they die. His doctors were giving him powerful drugs to make him happy. They made him so happy that he thought he was going to go to heaven and visit God, and from up there look at Jerusalem all day. So he was not sad at all, but a lot people in the country loved him so much that they became sad, because he was dead. They were sad because they thought he was the Imam that they had asked for, and their wish had come true, but he was a false hero savior, and he had not made their lives any better, except for those men that were very close to him, like his clone Rafsanjani and his children. As a matter of fact people’s lives had become much worse than it was when he appeared on the stairway of the big airplane and said: “Nothing!�?

When Khomeini was about to be buried in the ground, some people became sad so much that they lost their mind and did not want him to be buried. Any time some one tried to bury him they would rush in and grab onto his shroud, that’s the cloth that is used to cover the dead person’s body. Finally they grabbed to his shroud so much that they removed it from his weewee. And that is the funniest thing that happened that day.

As for Saddam, he started another war with another one of his neighbors soon after. Finally in a third war, he was completely defeated forever. His war days were finally over when his hiding place in an underground spider hole was discovered, and he was arrested for his crimes against humanity.

And that is the end of the story. Comment

He drank the sweet elixir of martyrdom 22 years ago, and he died. He tied a grenade around his waist 22 years ago, and he died. He was thirteen years old when he slid his childlike body under the enemy tank, and he died. In 1986, a stamp was issued in his name, but he is dead. He looks down upon us from posters and murals all across our country’s cities, but he is dead.

Right or wrong, he didn’t sit on the sidelines and take a worthless position of neutrality. Right or wrong, he was asked to grow up and enter manhood a decade or more earlier than any boy should have to. Right or wrong, he was one of many who lied about his age in order to enlist in the war effort. Right or wrong, he fought for our country aside hundreds of thousands of others. Many died along with our little boy, and they remain nameless, right or wrong…

Love him or hate him, Iran’s leader at the time had something of great emotional value to say of this young soldier, of this little man, “The value of his little heart is greater than could be described by hundreds of tongues and hundreds of pens…” He also should have added a million keystrokes on the computer.

I had heard the name Mohammad Hossein Fahmideh in many books and war movies when I was younger, but I never truly knew his story until I read an article about the twenty-first commemoration of his death on CNN.com. Now, I know a little. Now, I want to know more. Not only about Fahmideh, but about the ones whose deaths were not commemorated through the years.

From what the American history books tell me, nearly 1,000,000 of our soldiers died. From what I read in the news, we are still exchanging the bodies of our war prisoners with Iraq. From what I hear, there are men and women and children still in our hospitals today, dying little by little, of the after-effects of Iraqi chemical warfare. Living a daily death. A cycle of pain that never ends, heaviness of breathing, bodily pain, scars; longlasting reminders of the bombings and the tanks and the flying shrapnel.

So what does this have to do with us? Us, meaning those who were merely toddlers when all the horrors were taking place. It’s ironic that I might have been taking my first steps at about the same time that men who were fighting for my country were losing their limbs and their lives. What do I do now, 15 years after the end of the fighting?

There are things best not remembered, but I am glad to have read the article I did about Fahmideh. I am glad that I my mind was refreshed in the history department. All around the case the go to war with Iraq today is the Iran issue. Americans like to quote it and analyze it and repeat it over and over and over. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranians. Let’s give them a hand. They finally let it out. But where were they twenty years ago? Why did no one in power say a word and why did no one take a stand?

I am Iranian. I used to feel that if there was an attack, it would be justified. It would be the perfect revenge for two decades ago. But now I know. I have drunk the sweet elixir of forgiveness. I have tasted from the cup of peace. I have found the answer to that question of: What do we do? We put a stop to it. Whatever is past is past. The future begins with us and the choices we make today. If today I stand for peace, if today, my heart cries out to Iraqis, maybe tomorrow they will stand for me. The world turns in strange ways. What was up, falls down, and vice versa. If only someone had taken a stand so long ago…

Think of all the little boys who would have grown to be great men…

You forget one difference between the jews and Iran and Iraq, the jews that are in Israel today are European Jews!!! big difference. all of the inahbitants of palestine were jews before christ and islam, so it is true that jews were the inhabitants of Palestine, as before Islam the population was jewish and christian only!!!! With Iran and Iraq, you are talking about the Arabs invading Iran and Iraq from the hejaz, Islam came from the Hejaz, and spread to North Africa , spain and India to the east, with its main goal of putting Islam above all else. Most peoples and cultures of the middle east and North Africa refered to the pre islamic civilizations they had as Jahelia, after Islam, Ferdowsi , and many others like Saadi Khayam Enabled Iran to retain its pre islamic heritage and remember the pre tazi days and heritage it once had. Iran did not come from Germany to occupy Iraq, it has had a long ancient history tied with Iraq, and if you deny that then you are the same type of Arab mind that Dr. Patrick Clawson talks about that Dr. Kaveh Farokh talks about and that Ibn Khaldun and many others have mentioned. Again I mention what Ibn Khaldun has said about Arabs and Persians

Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun, full name Arabic: ابو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي‎, Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn al-Ḥa�?ramī (May 27, 1332/732AH – March 19, 1406/808AH), was a famous historiographer and historian born in present-day Tunisia, and is sometimes viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology and economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah “Prolegomenon”.

On the Arab Conquests in 7th century:

Religious propaganda gives a dynasty at its beginning another power in addition to that of the group feeling it possessed as the result of the number of its supporters… This happened to the Arabs at the beginning of Islam during the Muslim conquests. The armies of the Muslims at al-Qadisiyah and at the Yarmuk numbered some 30,000 in each case, while the Persian troops at al-Qadisiyah numbered 120,000, and the troops of Heraclius, according to al-Waqidi, 400,000. Neither of the two parties was able to withstand the Arabs, who routed them and seized what they possessed. ( Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal, p.126, Princeton University Press, 1981.)

Ibn Khaldūn expresses a great admiration for the Persians and sedentary culture.

It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars both in the religious and intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs . Thus the founders of grammar were Sibawaih and, after him, al-Farisi and az-Zajjaj. All of whom were of Persian descent. They were brought up in the Arabic language and acquired knowledge of it through their upbringing and through contact with Arabs. They invented the rules [of grammar] and made it into a discipline for later generations. Most of the hadith scholars, who preserved traditions of the Prophet for the Muslims also were Persians, or Persian in language and breeding because the discipline was widely cultivated in Iraq and regions beyond. Furthermore, all the great jurists were Persians, as is well-known. The same applies to speculative theologians and to most of the Qu’ran commentators. Only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of the Prophet becomes apparent, If learning were suspended at the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it. … The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them. They were cultivated by Arabicized Persians, as was the case with all the crafts, as we stated at the beginning. This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khurasan and Transoxiana, retained their sedentary culture. [4] [5] (note in the Islamic literature there are two Iraq’s. The Iraq-e-Ajam (Persian Iraq) and Iraq-e-Arab (Arab Iraq). The Persian Iraq mentioned by Ibn Khaldun is the historic Iraq-e-Ajam (Persian Iraq) which constitutes the triangle of Isfahan, Shiraz and Hamadan).

Richard Nelson Frye encapsulates the crisis in Arab attitudes towards the Iranians (See R.N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1989, p.236):

“Arabs no longer understand the role of Iran and the Persian language in the formation of Islamic culture. Perhaps they wish to forget the past, but in so doing they remove the bases of their own spiritual, moral and cultural being…without the heritage of the past and a healthy respect for it…there is little chance for stability and proper growth”