Iran's Anger Over a New Map Magnifies a Perception Gulf

TEHRAN — They were just two small words, a parenthetical aside on a National Geographic map.

But that's all it took to get fiercely proud Iranians to rise up this week against what they saw as an attack on their history.

In its latest world atlas, National Geographic added "Arabian Gulf" in parentheses beneath "Persian Gulf" to label the body of water that cuts along the coasts of Iran and its Arab neighbors.

The use of Arabian Gulf, and the implication that Iran may somehow be losing its historical claims to dominance of the ancient seas, pierced the cultural pride that pervades the land once known as Persia. It gave fresh life to the long and often bloody tensions between Iranians and Arabs, and added fuel to a widely held Iranian suspicion that Arabs have been quietly lobbying for years to change the name of the Gulf.

The Islamic Republic swiftly banned the National Geographic Society from selling its publications here or sending journalists into the country.

"Under the influence of the U.S. Zionist lobby and the oil dollars of certain Arab governments, the society has distorted an undeniable historical reality," wrote Hassan Hanizadeh in Tehran Times, a leading daily newspaper. "The society owes the Iranian nation an apology for distorting historical realities and using the unacceptable 'Arab Gulf' instead of the beautiful and historical name of the Persian Gulf."

So keen was the perceived slight that it brought a fleeting unity to Iran's far-flung political spectrum. From the left to the right to the disaffected, Iranians rallied against the offending American magazine. They blamed the "Zionists," accused the Arabs and lambasted the Americans.

"Distortion," "Discreditable," and "Politically Motivated," cried the headlines.

"The Arabs think that because they're rich they can buy anything, even names," said Mahbubeh Tabatabei, a 30-year-old woman who wandered in a sleepy shopping center in Tehran, window shopping with her mother and sister. "Even the way they walk, they think they own everything."

Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel whose headquarters are in Qatar, on the other side of the Gulf from Iran, played an animated cartoon to poke fun of Iranian ire. In it, an Iranian mullah is oblivious to regional strife but furious over the name of the Gulf.

Iran responded by threatening to restrict Al Jazeera's work along with the National Geographic ban.