Brenda Shaffer in Middle East Forum
Brenda Shaffer, Senior Advisor for Energy at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), spoke to a May 21 Middle East Forum webinar (video) about Iran's multi-ethnic minorities.
According to Shaffer, the size of non-Persian ethnic minorities in Iran is larger than commonly estimated by Western sources, which have relied on "old versions of the CIA Fact Book," which has been "debunked." In fact, Iranian government data mined by Shaffer for her FDD monograph, Iran Is More than Persia, shows that these minorities, including Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Baluchs, Lurs, and Ahwazi Arabs, comprise "over half of the population of Iran." According to the Iranian government's own internal polling data, some 40% of the population claims to be not fully fluent in the Persian language (Farsi).