June 16, 2017
Another stink over the use of the term “Arabian Gulf” arose last week when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used those words during a news conference.
The State Department, as a matter of policy, uses the term Persian Gulf. But in reading a prepared text about the problems between Qatar and its neighbors Friday, Tillerson began, “The situation in the Arabian Gulf over the last few days is troubling to the United States.”
That suggests the draft of the statement was not reviewed by career staff of the State Department, who would have caught that faux pas instantly.
The boner was noted immediately in Iran. Many Iranians took to the social media to voice their anger, creating the hashtag #Persian_Gulf.
“There is NO ‘Arabian Gulf’… It is ONLY one ‘Persian Gulf’. Do Not Forget!,” one user wrote, while another added, “Do you prefer to name ‘America’ as ‘Union of the American Republics’?”
Another user resorted to history, saying, “When Christopher Columbus [was] trying to discover America, Iranians was the owner of Persian Gulf.”
The Foreign Ministry soon piled on, even addressing a personal insult at Tillerson. Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said the optimistic view was that Tillerson just made a simple mistake, but the pessimistic view held that he was just plain dumb.
“We know about American politicians, and they are fully aware of the fact that ‘Persian Gulf’ is a long-standing, distinguished name. So, the optimistic view holds that he has made a mistake, and we hope he will correct it in the future.”
The pessimistic view, Qasemi said, holds that Tillerson does not understand history or geography. Qasemi suggested sarcastically that Tillerson should study and improve his knowledge of those two fields.
One social media user posted the image of the “Persian Gulf Veterans National Medal,” which is a military award presented to members of the Armed Forces who served in a combat zone during the Persian Gulf War, to show that Tillerson was at odds with his own government in using “Arabian Gulf.”
The US government’s preferred usage is “Persian Gulf.” But more and more Americans use the term that offends Iranians because for almost 40 years few Americans have dealt with Iran and more have dealt with Arabs who use the term “Arabian Gulf.”
Before becoming secretary of state, Tillerson was an oil industry executive where he dealt with many Arabs and no Iranians and regularly heard the term “Arabian Gulf.”
The last time the terminological offense arose was in May of last year. At that time, the Islamic Republic filed a formal diplomatic protest over an obscure piece of legislation introduced in the US House of Representatives by a single congressman using the term “Arabian Gulf.”
The Foreign Ministry filed the protest with the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which handles diplomatic contacts with the United States.
Such protests deal with official acts of another government that are objectionable to the complaining government.
But in this case, what Iran was complaining about was not an official action of the United States, just the musings of a solitary congressman, Rep. Randy Forbes of Virginia, a Republican.
He introduced a resolution, H. Res. 709, complaining about Iran. No other member of Congress ever joined in sponsoring it. And no committee took any action on it. The bill died at the end of last year.
It is not known if the United States ever replied to the formal Iranian complaint, but Iran did not follow up its complaint or refer to it again.
The resolution’s text charged that Iran has “undermined stability in the Arabian Gulf” by such actions as conducting a live fire exercise in December 2015 within 1,500 yards of a US aircraft carrier.
It received no attention in the United States. But in Iran, it was the top story in the day’s issue of the ultra-hardline daily Kayhan.
And it was said to have been the basis for comments that day by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi who fumed, “Today, the enemy makes statements that are bigger than their mouths. They sit and scheme that Iran must not have military drills in the Persian Gulf.”
The resolution, however, says nothing about banning Iranian drills in the Persian Gulf or anywhere else. And the United Stats has never opposed the right of Iran to hold military drills. More relevantly, however, the resolution was not the position of the Obama Administration, just of one Virginia congressman.
In the media and speeches, loud objections were heard about Forbes’ use of the term “Arabian Gulf,” although Khamenehi did not complain about that. The resolution used that term six times. Tillerson used it once.
