© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
SAYS WHO?
United States President Donald Trump, according to top American officials who spoke anonymously to The Associated Press.
Trump is headed to Saudi Arabia next week, and plans to announce that the US would refer to the Persian Gulf as “Arabian Gulf” or the “Gulf of Arabia” going forward.
The AP report said that the White House and National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.
WHAT’S WITH TRUMP AND NAMES?
Trump does have an affinity for changing the names of places: on Day 1 of his second term in the White House, he renamed the Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America”, the Alaskan peak Denali “Mount McKinley, and Fort Liberty, the sprawling US Army base in North Carolina, “Fort Bragg” after the Confederate general Braxton Bragg.
He also has his list of nicknames for people, which are essentially insults: “Sleepy Joe [Biden]”, “Crooked Hillary [Clinton]”, “Comrade Kamala [Harris]”, and “Little Rocket Man [Kim Jong Un]”.
BUT THIS ISN’T THE SAME.
No, it isn’t. Trump likely wants to signal to Saudi Arabia his agreement with the Kingdom’s preferred nomenclature of the body of water that lies between Iran to the east and Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the west, as the “Arabian Gulf”.
This body of water – connected to the Arabian Sea through the Gulf of Oman – has been called “Persian Gulf” or Gulf of Persia since at least the 16th century, after Persia, the older name of Iran.
However, many countries, especially the Arab countries, refer to it as the Gulf of Arabia or Arabian Gulf. Besides Saudi Arabia, Trump will also visit Doha, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, all of which are on this body of water.
The US military has for years referred to the “Arabian Gulf” in its statements and images, The AP report said. Google Maps in the US refers to “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf)”, while Apple Maps only says Persian Gulf.
IRAN DOES NOT LIKE IT.
Obviously not. This is an emotive issue for Iran. The name harkens to the civilisational glory of Persia and remains a source of Iranian national pride and inspiration.
Back in 2012, the government of Iran had threatened to sue Google because it had decided not to label the gulf at all in its maps. Then, in 2017, when Trump became President for the first time and used the name Arabian Gulf, Iran’s then President Hassan Rouhani suggested that he should “study geography”.
The AP report recalled that Iran’s then Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had written at the time: “Everyone knew Trump’s friendship was for sale to the highest bidder. We now know that his geography is, too.”
BUT CAN TRUMP REALLY CHANGE THE NAME?
Trump is probably pursuing his attempts to pull the Gulf Arab nations closer to the US, and to get them to invest in the country. He also sees American geopolitical interests in seeking out Arab cooperation in the Israel-Palestinian crisis, even as he tries to limit Iran’s nuclear program through a new deal with Tehran.
To these ends, he can decide what name the US would officially use for this body of water. But he cannot decide for the rest of the world – in the same way that he has not been able to get other countries to switch from the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America”.
The AP report noted that the International Hydrographic Organization, of which the US is a member, names some of the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters. However, in certain cases, countries refer to the same body of water or landmark by different names in their own documentation.
