Iran... or Persia?

I came across an article about Iran or Persia. Without confirming or rejecting the entire content of the article, I thought to share it with you.

Here are some excerpts:

..."Iran" as represented in the "news", a two-dimensional imago of oil wells and atomic reactors under the control of evil fanatics in black robes... Is this "Iran" any more real than the "Persia" in which I tried to travel and even to lose myself, the Persia of roses and nightingales that impinges so sensibly on my memory? Or are both equally real and unreal? The truth must certainly be more complex even than such paradox could suggest. But since "Iran" is now (as I write in the summer of 2003) being pumped up in the media as the next spoke of the Axis of Evil, I doubt that "Persia will get much airplay over the next few years. Hence this essay. "Persia" has become part of The World We Lost. Its perfume lingers even as it recedes into a past that's half imaginal. It leaves behind it only something that might be called difference. How else to define that which we feel is leaving us?

Read the whole article here.