Persian or Arabian Gulf, and why?

I use them both pretty interchangeably as well. I remembered being told that we didn't want the Iranians to think they owned it at some point in my career.

LCDR (Join to see)
Now that I think about it, my last few WESTPACS were called Arabian Gulf deployments. I'm sure the reason was because of Iran.

Well I always said Persian Gulf.

I am near where that used to be at the training base off of harbor and laning.

I will always call it the gulf war.

Definitely Persian Gulf. If you Arabian Gulf, someone from the UAE, Oman, Qatar, or Yemen might take offense to it and we should really watch that line and not cross it. Just kidding...Persian Gulf just sounds better, because the Persian Empire (Mesopotamia) was an enormous entity as an empire. It still pays homage to that lost, but unified culture they once had. You say Arabian Gulf and someone may not know that it is more than just Saudia Arabia.

LCDR (Join to see) - I used to go by there. I went to Cabrillo Elem as a kid. I hated to see the Navy Base go. I did go to just about every base there. I was in the my school Navy JROTC program.

That's pretty much why we do it.

We've essentially been in a Cold War with Iran for 30 years or so; calling it the "Arabian Gulf" is a (very mild) form of delegitimization. If that war turns hot, detatching any sort of sentiment to the Iranians also helps to justify fighting/killing them- it's a simple paychological trick as well as something we donto piss them off without actually starting hostilities. At least, that's my understanding.

And then given our allegiance with countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, we also use it as a small token of flattery.

When I was in we always refered to it as the Persian Gulf. I take it refering to it as the Arabian Gulf is a new thing.

LCDR (Join to see) - Commander; The "official" bit only applies to the US government (and a few of the Middle Eastern governments who - publicly - are "heavily influenced by a 'respect' for official American political positions").

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it's "the Persian Gulf" the same way it has been since the days of the Greeks (roughly around the time of the birth of Christ).

The fact that some of the Arab world wanted to change the name of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Gulf in the 1960 because Iran (formerly Persia) was seen as an ally of the United States of America (possibly because the democratically elected Iranian government had been overthrown by a coup engineered by the US government and replaced by an absolute monarchy in the name of "spreading democracy" iin the early 1950s) should give everyone a chuckle.

Yes you are correct COL Ted Mc but some would argue that the conflict dates back to the very beginning of the historic age and the Trojan War. Or at least that is the first well documented battle of East vs West.

But yes I think the US Gov made the change in the early 80s because of our falling out with Iran during the revolution. But definitely the world has seen the area under "Persian" control since the early days of civilization. But in the end to the victors go the spoils to include written the history books and maps. So we want to align with the Saudis (Arabian) and we call it the "Arabian Gulf" cause no one else can park to cities there and rule the sky, land and sea.

LCDR (Join to see) - Commander; I've always found it a bit amusing that "the best friend of American democracy" in the Middle East is an absolute monarchy with some of the strictest (official) applications of "Islamic morality law".