Iran orders US to pay compensation for slain nuke scientists

[Igel]

8. Negative solidarity.

It's what helps keep an empire together. That, and centralized centers of oppression.

Look at this " target="_blank">link and you'll see that Persia (now Iran) has territory that in nation-state terms should be given the choice of joining Iraq, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan.

If Kurdistan or Balochistan were to exist ... (And Iran has had a Kurdish or Balochi independence movement at times.)

Iran is a rump empire, what's left after it's lost most of its territory and is left vestigial. Unlike Britain, it was land-based. Like " target="_blank">Russia.

Oh, wait, that's an old, old ethnographic map of the Russian empire. Oops. USSR, without useless jurisdictional lines. (Poland's clearly at the Curzon line.)

A better " target="_blank">map , if the link works, is horribly political. It cancels Russians. Humorously note that the dominant language for this is, um, Ukrainian. < chuckle >

Still, Russia is a patchwork of ethnicities conquered by tsars and komtsars.