I just got off the phone with my buddy, Amir. He's a police officer in my town who I met at the coffee shop (no donuts there). He's a movie nut like me and a rock fan, so I'm always burning movies and albums for him. I'm taking him in about 10 minutes to pick up a new TV set in my truck.
Anyway, he was born in Iran and moved to the States when he was 10. You'd never know it as he doesn't look different and has no accent and is almost fully "Americanized". He not only acknowledged that Iran is a part of the Middle East, his exact words were "Of course it's a part of the Middle East". That comes from an Iranian.