Iran is a political entity in which the ethno-confessional dimension is essential. The millennia-old tradition of the Persian Empire was based on tolerance toward all minorities. The most powerful Persian emperor, Darius I, described himself as “the king of the land of all ethnicities.” This phrase is engraved on his tomb in Susa (Shush), in 486 BC. This tradition of tolerance was broken in 1928 in favor of a hyper-centralized system of repression of minorities. ...