Persian (or Arabian) Gulf Is Caught in the Middle of Regional Rivalries

What’s in a name?

History, politics and pride.

Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been escalating on many fronts — over wars in Syria and Yemen, the Saudis’ execution of a dissident Shiite cleric and the Iran nuclear deal. The dispute runs so deep that the regional rivals — one a Shiite theocracy, the other a Sunni monarchy — even clash over the name of the body of water that separates them.

Is it the Persian Gulf? Or the Arabian Gulf?