Bahtatboy

All the Iranians I've dealt with (from nearly 30 years ago) have been personable. There were some tough negotiations, but conducted professionally. I hope, as a country, they get back on their feet and are not hindered by their own religious zealots; they can provide a balancing counterpoint to much of what goes on in the ME.

shakh your bootie

Interesting perspectives - thanks guys. I have logged in after >7 years after leaving the UAE, and did so to hear what the word on the street was re Iran and was not disappointed.

FWIW - my views....

I don't think that US or European foreign policy really "gets" just how crucial the schism between Shi'a and Sunni theology is to the stability of the ME. Nor how powerful the influence of Soviet hegemony has historically been in the region. So it's now a bingo game as to who will be the winners and losers going forward. Glad I don't live there anymore.

Re the "I like every Iranian I've ever met" type quotes. Meh. Yeah. Me too. But then, we would because we meet the intelligentsia emigre community who by definition left and had the wherewithal to be successful elsewhere - equally, there are (and I have met many and am related to many) hard-line nut-jobs that have a real hard time forgetting what happened in Qerbala at the massacre of Pro Mo's descendants (being from a Shi'ite family, I have sat through Majlis sessions where this is remembered with rending of flesh and much gnashing of teeth - quite literally).

Finally, at a time when the USA cannot fill its own oil storage facilities and the rest of the world is heading towards a similar supply glut of the black gold - it is a red rag to a bull to have Iran up its supply to the world market. A cynical person might suspect that this is a deliberate move to set one satrap against another viz a viz the Saudi vs Iran thang.

In a nutshell - and to paraphrase Dylan - one rather fears that it's a hard rain's a gonna fall....................

scrubbedexpat141

Lots in there for me to google and read about. Thanks.

Bahtatboy

A false assumption: nearly all the Iranians I have dealt with were still living in Iran.

It may also be worth reading between the lines a bit. Without doubt most of the Iranians I've dealt with were from the well-educated and professional stratum, but then so were (and still are) most of the people who I deal / have dealt with from the Gulf and across north Africa. I don't hold the same view of them.

Millhouse

no way to talk about the western expats.

Bahtatboy

Many a true word spoken in jest

captainflack

I certainly met people who saw it on those lines, but it always seemed to me that the gulf monarchies' fear/hatred of Iran was primarily driven by what it represented - a popular islamic uprising against a corrupt heridary dictatorship. That's what they all fear most. If the money runs out and their population start to feel the squeeze, then questions get asked about the way the people at the top are living. Revolutions are nearly always fundamentally about economics rather than politics.

Inselaffen

goes back pre-Iranian Revolution.
Persian vs. Arab. Suni vs. Shia

Boomhauer

Along withe sectarian hatred it also ethnic hatred, Iranians not being Arabs. The Kurds (an Indo-iranian speaking group) are primarily Sunni but Sunni Arab Saddam tried to cleanse them off Northern Iraq.

scot47

Since the days of Antony Eden v. Moussadeq, most Iranians have seen the enemy as being London. Expect most deals to be done with other Western states, especially Germany which has had long had interests in the region.
Many Iranians still feel bitter that the West (and the Saudis) encouraged Saddam to invade.

Millhouse

Quite. Not forget the distrust of the Brits over the 1950s Oil nationalization.