Geopolitics of Iran

In the last 500 years the borders of Iran have remained more or less the same. This is because of the topographical barriers. The country is surrounded by thee mountainous borders and a coastline in the south. The center of the country is an uninhabitable wasteland. Iran's rough terrain brought forth the 16th century metaphor, "The walls of Iran". And despite Iran's growing regional influence, the country remains vulnerable from the inside. Although the country is also known as Persia, almost half of Iran's total population is actually non-Persian. Many of Iran's strategic regions are populated by ethnic minorities such as the Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Balochis and Arabs.

[MrPlito]

Hey Caspian, it would be great if you did an actualization of this video, seeing how things have developed and how important the topic is right now.

[PalePinkThink]

As an Iranian, I tell you that the ethnic issue isn't that big of a deal unless outside powers intervene. It's always been a multicultural country for thousands of years.

[xoigel]

"In the last 500 years the borders of Iran have remained more or less the same." NOT EXACTLY: Today's Caucasus was lost, today's Afghanistan was lost. Part of central Asia was lost. Part of Pakistan was lost. The country shrank.

"The Azerbaijan was divided between Persia and Russia." >> RATHER: Part of Azerbaijan was taken from the Azeri speaking dynasty of Qajar, who ruled Persia, by Russians, following Persia's series of defeats against Tsari russians.

[iranlandforever]

You clearly have bias views as an azeri from the azerbaijan republic iranian azeris are very loyal to iran and have always held positions of power

[alafpolo]

You missed Lurdish, Turkemens, Mazandarani, and Gilakis also. However Azeris are considered as much Iranian as anybody else they have been blended with Persians all over the country and is almost impossible to separate them from Iran. They have been heavily influenced by Iranian culture and customs and many important people of Iranian history has been Azeris. The only reason Azerbaijan became the country was because Iran lost that territory to Russia in 19th century they were always part of Iran and most Azeris consider themselves Iranian and there are only minority of them who have separation agenda. Kurds and Balooch are also Indo-Iranian people and even though there has been some problems with Kurds, it has been very minor and nothing like the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. In fact Kurds has been treated much much better in Iran than inside Turkey and Iraq. Arabs of Khuzestan also are shia and are much closer to Iran than any other Arab countries. Saddam found that in the hard way. Iranians are not only Persians that is why Reza Shah rightfully made the countries's name officially to be Iran which means land of Aryan which conclude all Iranians as Persians are and discredit the name Persia which was used in Western world wrongfully. They have been united for thousands of years and nothing will ever change.

[remuj]

Didnt realize he's been making videos for this long. Nice work

The arabs in Kuzestan is a minority even there in khuzestan, The majority there are lurs and Persians. I have lived there.

[sorenaparak]

It was very interesting presentation by you but obviously there were many falsifications in this clip:
1. Not all Khuzestan are Arab. Arab people are 40% of inhabitants in this region.
2. Azerbaijan was never ever a country before and did not divided by Iran and Russian.
Actually, Azerbaijan was part of Iran before and it became occupied by Russian. And this new born country (Azerbaijan) was not named as today but she named Aran. 
3. You showed a football stadium in Tabriz that people call “ long life Azerbaijan “. You interpreted, as people would like to be separated from the rest of Iran. It is ridicules. In Iran in different regions people appreciate always their region where they live, their ethnic and even city. That does not mean they would like be separated.

[CaspianReport]

I said that the Azerbaijani people were divided between the Russian and Persian empire. There was no reference to a state. Read the treaties of Turkmenchay and Gulistan (1828 and 1813 respectively).

[ARIA-dejc]

I'm lur and I am from iran
Honestly I never considered myself non persian
My language is about 90 % similar to persian
We speak a version of Pahlavi wich is mother of all aryan languages
So we are iranian
And if you travel to my city you will see ancient monuments from parthians sassanids. Most of historical monuments of iran is in my province
Also lurs are the only iranian who fought arab invasion and stronghold still is here close to my home(about one km)
And now days TURKS are ruling the country and we see the conclusion, sanctions, problem with west (ironically)
And about the arab yes they speak arabic but they are not arab ethnically . Look at their face and appearance you can not see any similarity to the Arabs . In map showing whole province as Arabs but honestly there is a small group of them there
And about the Kurds I have many friends if Kurd they know themselves iranian even my girlfriend is a kurd

[saeedm]

Hi Shirvan,
as a persian I find your videos interesting to watch but there are a couple of exaggerations here,
Not all leaders of Iran are Persian (some are azeri, some have arabic background)
Also the Iranian government likes to promote shia islam ideology not Persian culture,
if anyhting, all Iranians feel discriminated which kind of unties them in a sense,
I think the only region in iran that has armed separatist movements to some degree is Kurdistan (such as PJAK),
they were fighting the regime in the 80's but they were crushed.

[matthaeusphilologos]

Why do you say Khuzestan isn't populated by Persians? My dad is Persian, comes from Khuzestan (a city called Dezful) and his family has lived there since times immemorial. When I went there people told me Arabs are a minority and are mostly refugees from the Iraq War. The majority population is a mixture of Persians and Lurs, which are an Iranian people.

[fanzy]

I have one friendly advice for you. Don’t ever make another video about Iran if you want to preserve what little credibility is left of your channel after this video.

[iranlandforever]

i am azeri iranian and there is not a strong separatist azeri movement in iran at all.

[khashayarsartipi]

I have watched many CaspianReport videos so far, and I considered it as a rather impartial and informative channel. But as I watched this video, there was a long list of errors that makes me doubt how factual the information in other videos were. Let me provide a quick list of some of the mistakes here:
During the past 500 years, Iran's border on the western side hasn't changed much because the Ottomans were there, but the northern and the eastern borders have changed SIGNIFICANTLY from Safavid to Afsharid to Zand to Qajars and then the Pahlavi dynasty.(and this doesn't have to do with mountain ranges mentioned in the video.)
The Zagros mountains on the southwest of Iran are not very rugged and can be easily crossed by armies, as it has happened throughout the history e.g. by the Greeks and Arabs. On the other hand, the northern Alborz mountains are much taller, and harder to climb, and have worked as a natural barrier against the Arab invasion and several other armies.
The mountains on the east side of Iran are not the Alborz mountains, (e.g. the ones on the northeast side are "hezar masjed" mountains, non of which form a significant mountain range).
Azarbaijan was not "divided" by the Russian and Persian empire. Iran controlled the whole area until around 1830, and the part which now consists of the country of Azarbaijan (together with Georgia and Armenia) was lost to the Russians after losing a battle (and by the Treaty of Turkmenchay). After the collapse of Soviet Union, these nations emerged.
Many of the separatist movements in Azarbaijan, either call for an independent state, or are more leaning towards Turkey, and NOT Azarbaijan.
The southwestern province of Khuzestan is about one third Arab (and most of the rest are Persian), and even though separatist movements can be found throughout the country, it never seemed like there were any serious threats from that side, as they fought valiantly in the war against Iraq. This is also the region with the most oil resources, and is not a rugged terrain, unlike what the video claims.
I have also never heard of Iran trying to "acquire assets in the Saudi oil", and consider it unlikely, given the historical and political (and religious) animosity between the countries and their governments.(Though I may be wrong on this one.)
Also Iran's economical problems are not explained well. For example almost every US president has introduced some new sanctions on Iran. This has more to do with the isolationist (and anti-west) policies of the Iranian government, and the high levels of corruption that results in the oil revenue to be controlled by very few, and are often used to support and fund other political and religious groups outside the country.

[roozbehleylabi]

And know this. No matter who rules the Iran, Azarbaijan is a part of Iran and jewel of the crown. Irans' head.

[BigbrotherMK]

dude i'm Iranian Azari and your wrong about us, we in our country think that Azerbaijan republic belong to us not the vice versa and Russians took it from us. Khozestan is not predominant Arab we have Iranian arabs for sure but they are not the majority its an Iranian land it's a shame that Baku is not for us and if we own Azerbaijan we for sure would not let the crisis between you and Armenia happened so soghul

[mirsajadseyedrahimi]

I am an Iranian Azarbaijani and i can assure you that not even 1%of azaris in iran demand separation, actually we claim the parts which were separated from Iran must come back to their motherland YAŞASIN İRANIM YAŞASIN CANIM AZERBAYCANIM
Toprax yiyerix toprax vermerix biz

[CaspianReport]

I have been multiple times to Iran. The Iranian government always plays down the ethnic and religious numbers. Plus they count the number of ethnic groups based per province and not ouside. For example a major part of the city Tehran speaks Azeri and so does half of the Gilan province. Yet these numbers arent included in the national statistical calculations of Iran. The government doesnt calculate on the migration factor and this significantly changes the ethnic composition of the country.

[skiados]

Thank you for this report, but i think you made two minor mistakes: first, the Kurds of Iran (not all Kurds, i talk about Iranian Kurds) have large percentage of Kurdish Shia people, not the majority perhaps, but large percentage. Second, the Arabs of southwest Iran (Khuzestan), are about 50% of the population.
Thank you