Is it because it is not PC to call a culture primitive?

If you know its history and are absolutely sure that your evaluation is correct. But I have the feeling that you haven’t checked Iranian history - because historians don’t tend to put Iran in the same sentence with that.

So, I would add some notes. Islamic extremism has not been in power “for 1500 years” in Iran - it has been in power since 1979. Iran has political problems. And let me tell you, political problems can quickly bring down a society that might otherwise have its problems under control.

Did folks call Germany “primitive” when Hitler rose to power? Nope, they used other terms. Do we call Russia “primitive” because of Putin? Will we start calling the US “primitive” if Trump manages to become a dictator? Do we call China “primitive” because they have a one-party dictatorship? Nope, we don’t.

They’re advanced societies facing difficult problems of various sorts. They are also extremely unequal societies - some people in the capital have modern life, but some in the periphery don’t even have jack s**t.

Iran could be spending its time selling satellite launches if it wanted, but has an Islamist theocracy in power. Any candidate can be disqualified in the elections if the grand ayatollah doesn’t like them. Iran does various extremely shortsighted and I would really say… extremely stupid things. Like fighting proxy wars with Israel and then fighting real wars with Israel, depending on Russia for ammunition and then supplying Russia with ammunition against Ukraine…

…but “stupid” and “primitive” are not synonyms.

After islamic extremists came to power in the 1979 revolution, they broke down Iranian society in many directions. Executions were widespread, terror was used to subdue opposition, women’s rights were trampled on, many things happened. Thing went wrong, got entrenched in the state of being wrong, and remain wrong to this day. :(

The regime before the islamists was the Shah (king). He had already been ousted and there had been parliamentary democracy in Iran, but the shah came back to power with UK and US support. He also terrorized the population through his secret police. The shah was hated and propped up by foreign powers - a ripe fruit for Islamists to pick and eat.

Before the shah, Iran had a problem with left-leaning populism and government-parliament relations, but I think this was their smallest problem. The last democratically elected PM (Mosadegh) was somewhat populist and wanted to nationalize the oil industries (wanted to hurt Western business interests), which would have been OK, but he also had problems with the Parliament, which was definitely not OK. With some Western assistance, he was couped out of power, which, in my books, spent Iran spiraling out of control.

That’s a brief summary of what’s been going on in the center of society, in the Persian speaking regions (I apologize for gross simplification, but I can’t summarize Iranian history into a single post, they have so much of it and it’s not simple - and not primitive).

In border regions, however, we observe different processes. Persians (Iran’s majority population) have easier access to what little justice their system can ensure, while minorities (the Azeri, Kurds, Arabs and among smaller groups, the Baloch) are marginalized and cannot get just treatment.

Iran is a former empire and has a considerable number of people who’ve been conquered at some time. Some of them want independence (ask a Kurd in private and you’ll hear). Society is neglecting them. If there was peace, and not islamic theocracy but democracy like in the 1950-ties, minority groups would likely have better living conditions. But as things are… sigh. Minority groups get the highest levels of poverty and oppression.