1) Iranians are Arabs
Iranian peoples are of Indo-European origin, not Semitic like Arabs.
The name Iran is a cognate of Aryan and literally means "Land of the
Aryans". ******* population in Iran makes less then 3% of total
population.

2) Iran is desert land
Only about 7% of Iranian territory is desert, while 13% is forested.
Desert areas (such as Lut and Kavir deserts) are located in just three
of 30 Iranian provinces. The Iranian landscape is predominantly
mountainous and rugged terrain, but one-third of total surface area is
suited for farmland. Iran irrigate the largest territory per capita in
the World. The land covered by Iran’s natural flora is four times that
of the Europe’s.

3) Iran only produces oil
About 40% of Iranian revenues comes from petroleum, but most comes
from petrochemicals, car manufacturing, agriculture, food processing,
utilities, telecom, pharmaceuticals, textiles, cement and construction
materials, construction, metal fabrication/metallurgy, armaments and
electronics.

4) Iran is a poor and undeveloped country
Facts:
– Iran GDP is 852,6 billion USD
– per capita: $12,300
– economic growth: 7%
– External debt: 13 billion USD (800 times less then US)
– 2/3 Iranians live in cities (Western level)
– population growth rate is 1% (also Western level, similar to US)
– Iran is only country in ME who don't have to import food
– Iran has one of the highest percentages of population in the ME with
access to safe drinking water
– 55 pharmaceutical companies in Iran produce more than 96% of
medicines on the market
– Iran launched satellites in space with own technology
– Iran developed own nuclear technology
– Iranian scientist cloned sheep
– Iran pioneered electrochemical nanotechnology
– Iran produces over 1,100,000 cars per year
– Iran produces own military and passenger planes
– Iran also produces own tanks, submarines, ballistic missiles, laser-
guided weapons
– Iranian construction engineers built supertall Milad Tower (435 m,
higher then ex. WTC)
– Iranian inventors won the most gold medals this year (last year they
were 2.)
....

5) Islamic revolution backwards Iran
Just note upper facts.
Plus one more: number of Iranian students increased by 3000% in last
29 years (from 100 000 to more then 3 000 000).

6) Iran is ruled by dictatorship
Iran is a democracy. Many people can't understand it because term
"democracy" become synonym for American puppet governments, but it
literally means "government by the people" or "majority rule". Before
1979., Iran was ruled by pro-American dictator M. Reza Pahlavi who was
overthrow by Iranian people during Islamic revolution. Iranians voted
for Islamic Republic on referendum. Today, all Iranians (men and
women) older then 15 have right to vote on democratic elections for
president, parliament and assembly of experts. Iranian leaders don't
live luxury life like all autocrats, they don't posses villas, jet
planes, yachts or Ferraries. For example, president Ahmadinejad live
modest life with his wife and 3 children in 50m2 flat.
Comparing Iran and USA:
Ahmadinejad was elected by 62% votes among seven candidates, and
George Bush was elected by (interrogative) 51% votes among just two
candidates.
More then 90% Iranians support their external politic, while 24%
Americans support their external politic.

7) Iran is a threat to Western World
This missunderstaing is mainly based on Western generalize all Muslims
and beliefs Iranians are the same like Arabs or Ottomans who tried
invade Europe (Spain and Balkan), but they don't know Iran also fought
against Arabs and Ottomans.
Western countries like Italy, Germany and France are Iranian trade
partners, and Iran don't have any political, strategic or economic
interests for endangering Europe. Iran is helping economies of many
Christian countries like Bolivia and Venezuela with billions of
dollars, and it's first Islamic country who recognized independence of
Roman-Catholic Croatia. During denunciation on Pope Benedict XVI and
his quotes about islam, Ahmadinejad gave him support.
Former Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani called missile
threat to Europe as "Joke of the year".

8) Iranian media are under government repression
There are more then 20 million internet users in Iran, and it's now
the world's fourth largest country of bloggers.
Since Khatami's media liberalisation in 1997, media are allowed to
criticize government. Simple example, cartoon of Ahmadinejad:
http://aksblog.ir/?i,ac1dd209

9) Iranian women are oppressed
Iranian women are far more free then in any Arabic state, they don't
cover their face or wear burka, they choose their marriage partner,
they own properties, drive cars, vote on elections, etc. These women
are the inheritors of a heritage in which women commanded armies, led
administrations, ruled empires, ruled kingdoms, supported the arts,
became heroes, and even served as deities in ancient beliefs. Iranian
women accounted for 33 percent of the workforce (out of 25 million
people) Many Westerns believe Iranian women are oppressed just because
they wear hijab, but they don't understand that hijab is part of
traditional Iranian costume. Moral norms like dressing differs from
country to country, and they are not indicator if country is developed
or not. If you consider Iran as undeveloped just because women wear
hijab, then African or Polinesian tribes seems to be the most
developed because they walk naked in public. Some interesting facts
about Iranian women:
– 70% (or 2.2 million) of Iranian students are women
– 80% of Iranian teachers are women
– Iran is only country with more female movie directors then male
– chief engineer on Iranian stealth jet project "Shafaq" was woman
– during last 10 years, more women participated in Iranian parliament
then in US Senate

10) Iranians practice polygamy
Polygamy is forbidden in Iran.

11) Iran finance international terrorism
First, Iranian terrorist groups don't exist on planet Earth, and Iran
never used suicide bombers in wars. Iran is actually fighting against
terrorist groups like Kurdish PKK and Baluch Jundallah (drug-dealers
and terrorists financed by US government). Iran only support Hezbollah
and Hamas. Hezbollah is political-resistance group commited to
fighting against Israeli aggressors, and it's regarded as "terrorist
group" only by American, Canadian, Dutch and Israeli government.
Hezbollah don't attack civilians, so it simply can't be regard as
"terror group" by definition. Hamas is democratic elected Palestinian
government also regarded as "terrorists" only by some Western
countries, while superpowers like Russia and China regard them as
legal administration. Iranian politics are diametrical reversed to
talibans or Osama bin Laden; Afghanistan and Iran were one step from
war in late 90's.

12) Iran is killing innocent people
Capital punishment is valid only for pedophiles, drug-dealers,
murderers, rapists, kidnappers, armed robbers, terrorists and national
traitors. Death penalty by stoning don't exist in Iran. Complaints
about death penatly in Iran are unfair because even USA practice it by
using gass chambers (like Nazis).

13) Iranian domination over Middle East is dangerous
Iran never had negative rule in history of the region. They didn't
attack any country during last 270 years, while USA attacked more then
100 countries during the same time. Last recorded attack was 1739.
when Shah Nader attacked India, but Iranian conquests and infuences on
India left the most valuable Indian monuments today like famous Taj
Mahal (Persian architecture). Iran aslo spread peace and tolerance in
all conquered territories and pioneered the first human right
document, famous Cyrus cilinder.

14) Islam destroyed Persian culture
The heaviest destrution of Iranian culture happened during Macedonian
and Mongol invasion. Arabs defeated Iranian Sassanids in 651. and they
ruled for next 150 years, but Islam become major Iranian religion in
late 11. century or 450 years after Arab invasion. During that time,
islam slowely and peacefuly integrated in Persian culture, but Iran
was never arabized. Pre-islamic Sassanid culture is far more similar
to Islamic Iranain culture then to Achaemenid culture of First Empire.
The blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy, medicine and art
became major elements of the newly-forming Muslim civilization.
Inheriting a heritage of thousands of years of civilization, and being
at the "crossroads of the major cultural highways", contributed to
Persia emerging as what culminated into the "Islamic Golden
Age" (7.-15. century).

15) Iranians hate Jews
Iranians are notable for tolerance to Jews since their early history;
significant among Cyrus deeds was his granting of permission to the
Jews to return from their exile in Babylon to their native Israel to
rebuild the Temple of Solomon. Judaism is tolerated since then to
present; there are more than 40 000 Jews living in Iran today (more
than in all Arab countries combinated), attacking on Iranian Jews were
never recorded and they even have own representatives in Iranian
parliament.

16) Ahmadinejad is a madman
Ahmadinejad took Iran's national university entrance exams (concours)
to gain admission into Iran's top universities. His test score ranked
him 132nd among over 400,000 participants that year, landing him at
the Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) as an
undergraduate student of civil engineering. After the Iranian
Revolution, he entered the Master of Science program for civil
engineering in 1984. In 1989, he became a member of the Science
faculty at the university where he had studied. In 1997, he received
his Ph.D. in transportation engineering and planning from the Science
and Technology University.

17) Ahmadinejad participated in kiddnaping Americans during Islamic
revolution
This dezinformation was launched immediately after conservative
Ahmadinejad won on presidental elections. Goal was to discredit
Iranian president as "kidnapper" or "terrorist" from the start. This
news quickly passed around the World as headlines, but subsequent
denial was mentioned in just few lines. Even CIA and former American
hostages confirmed Ahmadinejad didn't participated in that crisis.

18) Ahmadinejad denied the holocaust
Ahmadinejad words:
They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this
above God, religions and the prophets. The West has given more
significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more
significant than God, religion, and the prophets, (it) deals very
severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to
those who deny God, religion, and the prophet. If you have burned the
Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada
or Alaska to Israel? Our question is, if you have committed this huge
crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?

19) Ahmadinejad called for destrution of Israel
Many news sources have presented one of Ahmadinejad's phrases in
Persian as a statement that "Israel must be wiped off the map", an
English idiom which means to "cause a place to stop to exist", or to
"obliterate totally", or "destroy completely".
Ahmadinejad's phrase was " بايد از صفحه روزگار محو شود " according to
the text published on the President's Office's website.
The translation presented by IRIB has been challenged by Mr. Arash
Norouzi, who proposes that the statement "wiped off the map" was never
made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of
Israel, but to the "regime occupying Jerusalem".
According to Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern
Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad's statement should be
translated as:
The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e
eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az
safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).
Norouzi's translation is identical. According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad
did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such
idiom exists in Persian". Instead, "He did say he hoped its regime,
i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translates the phrase
similarly. On June 15, 2006 The Guardian columnist and foreign
correspondent Jonathan Steele published an article based on this
reasoning.
Sources within the Iranian government have also denied that
Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat. On 20 February 2006, Iran’s
foreign minister denied that Tehran wanted to see Israel “wiped off
the map,” saying Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood. "Nobody can
remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of
what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki told a news
conference, speaking in English, after addressing the European
Parliament. "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He
is talking about the regime. We do not recognise legally this regime,"
he said.
A synopsis of Mr Ahmadinejad's speech on the Iranian Presidential
website states:
He further expressed his firm belief that the new wave of
confrontations generated in Palestine and the growing turmoil in the
Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel away.
The same idiom in his speech on December 13, 2006 was translated as
"wiped out" by Reuters:
Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so
will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out.

20) Ahmadinejad believes in coming of messiah Mahdi and World
cataclysm
In islamic beliefs, Mahdi is analogical for Muslims as Jesus for
Christians; expected messiah who has yet to appear; others believe
that he has already been on earth but will return. Ahmadinejad used
one philosophic citation about Mahdi during his public speech, and
immediately after Israeli media without any logic start to charge him
for "invoking messiah and nuclear cataclysm". Parallel, many Western
politicians use Jesus's citations but no one has been charged for any
kind of cataclysm, simply because it's idiotic.