It is difficult to understand why Iranian officials are so insistent upon inserting the term “Persian Gulf” at every occasion connected to its relations with its neighbors in the Gulf, whether it is an international conference, or even a football game. Naturally, this term will not alter this waterway's geographical location, or its strategic position in a region that largely controls the economies of the rest of the world, and thus requires that this Gulf be protected at a level that suits its importance. For this reason, this Iranian insistence can only be understood as part of an attempt by the Islamic Republic to dominate its neighbors, in a plan that involves two objectives. One is nationalistic and racist, and goes further than the issue of the waterways in the Gulf, while the second is an ideological objective, and is linked to the Iranian Revolution itself. According to the ideology of this revolution, the people of the region are either allies or “conspirators” against it. It is strange that Iran, which is supposed to be currently preoccupied with the Palestinian cause, and which is preparing itself to “break the legs” of anyone who attacks its allies, finds the time to celebrate the so-called ‘National Persian Gulf Day'. Meanwhile, its president believes that focusing on this name “isn't about tribal or nationalistic fanaticism, but our enemies want to distort the issue, to suggest that the Gulf is an unsafe area that now requires the conspirators to preserve security there.” Such a statement by Ahmadinejad can be only understood to mean that he believes that the Gulf, where Iran is located on one of its banks and six Arab states on the other, cannot achieve security unless it is a “Persian Gulf.” In fact, this reminds us of other assaults against the region's identity, under various terms. Thus, for instance, Jerusalem becomes “Urshalim,” and the West Bank becomes “Judea and Samaria.” When Israelis try to Judaize the names of Arab cities and villages, remove signs that indicate these original names, and then impose Hebrew names in their place, we condemn this. Similarly, we should condemn it more when the state that is declaredly friendly to the Arabs and that claims that its behavior toward them differs from the chauvinism of the ousted Shah's days, bans prestigious magazines like The Economist and the specialized National Geographic magazine because they indicated that the Gulf is indeed Arab. What makes things worse is that the same Arab countries - with six of them located on the Arab bank of the Gulf as we said above - chose to name their federation the “Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, and not the “Cooperation Council for the States of the Arab Gulf,” in a bid to avoid nationalist sensitivities, which are unjustifiable between the two sides at any rate. The dispute with Iran has transcended the issue of naming the Gulf, and reached an ugly racism that now dares to attack the national identity of the Arabs. We saw this in the reactions to the dispute that took place on the sidelines of a football match between the Ittihad Club of Saudi Arabia and Zob Ahan of Iran, in Isfahan. Prior to the kick-off, the Jordanian referee demanded the removal of posters reading “Persian Gulf,” even though the goal of the game was not to determine its identity! The website Asr Iran, which is close to the fundamentalists, described the Arab protests thusly: the independence of some Arab countries is shorter than the age of some streets in Iran, and that some of these states had been a part of either Iran or the Ottoman Empire! The same website also accused the Arabs of searching for a “lost identity” by fabricating names. The Arab identity today might be truly lost, but to be frank, we should note that the Iranians are not responsible for this loss, but rather some Arabs who are trying to recover it by allying with Persia, as Ahmadinejad called it. If the president of the “Persia” is not embarrassed by the name of his country, will his Arab supporters be embarrassed?