Listening to an Iranian official describe his region as “West Asia” got me wondering if the word “Middle East” is on the outs and why. I suspect Middle East is eurocentric for some reason, but West Asia also preserves Europe as a continent, which is Eurocentric in its own way because Europe is not a continent and never was. If we’re calling anything West Asia, it should be Spain and Portugal.
The answers to your primary and secondary questions: it’s political.
Iran calls itself “west Asia” specifically to be contrarian to the Western vernacular. That, and “middle east” is a Roman thing (as is Asia) and Iranians are still a bit put out by the Persian empire falling to Greece and Rome. Most Iranians identify as Persian and consider Iran a Western political entity they’re stuck with but that doesn’t define them.
You know how there’s people in the southern US that live as though the Confederates never lost and they want to hold on to their history and culture? Persians are much more that way.
Who else advocates for “West Asia”? Is it just Iran?
There was a really insane dude I ran into somewhere on the internet that would just always talk about how great Persia was and was always bringing up the Persian Empire and talking about how Persian armies defeated Rome or Greece (aka The West) in this or that battle–totally out of context–so I know what you’re talking about.
Oh, and the Iranian guy who uses “West Asia”, also refers to “The West,” meaning Europe and the US, so I guess everyone falls into geographical relativitity eventually.