By Faramarz Farbod

A popular joke in the United States of the late 1980s depicted Iran as a country that had for long generated substantial troubles for successive U.S. administrations. A U.S. President, so the joke went, had his State Department tasked with bringing him the U.S. government file on Iran. The Department was unable to find the Iran file under the letter "I." The President asked that the search be conducted under the letter "P" for Persia, Iran's pre-1933 name. As the second search also failed, confusion set in the White House whereupon an advisor suggested that perhaps Iran had been filed under the letter "U," to which the President asked what it stood for. The reply: Ulcers.