If I remember correctly Serbia and Montenegro were the legal inheritors of Yugoslavian legacy, thereafter just Serbia. These things can be murky, and I'm sure Iran saw Belgrade as still Yugoslavia. But I take your point that it may not have been the single most important factor, but a large factor non-the-less.
Those were the successors of Yugoslavia indeed. However, they did not directly intervene in the Bosnian war. Also, in 1998 i.e. only three years after the end of the conflict in Bosnia, Kosovo went up in flames. And during that latter war which was waged directly on the soil of what remained of Yugoslavia, Iran did not intervene militarily. If Iran wanted to punish the Yugoslavs and/or Serbia for their role during the Iran-Iraq war, that's where it would have acted in priority, but it chose not to.
Iran isn't so much into long term revenge for past conflicts. An example for this is how Tehran forewent demands for war reparations vis a vis Iraq after the fall of Saddam, whilst Kuwait didn't.
From my understanding, the Azeri's seem to take the view that because there is a very large Azeri community in Iran, Iran wants to keep Azerbaijan down or under control. I won't side with who is right, but I really do not see why Azerbaijan becoming closer with Turkiye should bother Iran, and support a country that is trying to destroy it, it seems a bit extreme.
Iran isn't bothered by Ankara-Baku relations. But only by two things:
- Zionist presence in Azarbaijan Republic, and their reported use of its territory to conduct operations against Iran. Some years ago, Iran downed an Isra"el"i spy drone. Considering the distance to Iran's borders and the range of that UAV type, there's really not many plausible places it could have taken off from besides the Baku republic. Likewise, Iranian intelligence is reported to have traced people involved in assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists back to Azarbaijan, which is said to have been used as an operational hub by Mossad.
- Azari separatism against Iran being indirectly or implicitly encouraged or tolerated by the regime in Baku.
Tehran does not need to keep Baku down on grounds that there's a large Azari-speaking population in Iran. Frankly, these are extremely well integrated and patriotic Iranian citizens. So many nationalistic figures in Iran's history have been of Azari descent, such as Heydar Khan Amu-Oghli or Sattar Khan during the 1906-1910 Constitutional Revolution to name just two. Also Iran's current Supreme Leader, ayatollah Khamenei, is a native Azari speaker himself. Many of the Iranian users at PDF (Muhammad45, aryobarzan, Shawnee etc) have Azari roots too, and as you can see Iran needn't worry about their loyalty.
The picture with that religious head gear, train them, help them, but don't indoctrinate them, I find that troubling everywhere because the help is negatively coloured by peddling ones own thinking onto others.
Well, but if I may, this doesn't reflect sectarianism. It's rather general Islamic identity beyond sectarian divides, which is put forth in that example.
There's a reason Iranian advisers chose the name Mohammad Rasul Allah (s) rather than the names of Shia Imams (like they often do in Iran) for the headbands of these Bosnian troops: since the Prophet (s) is respected by Sunni brothers as much as by the Shias, they deliberately opted for his name and title.
You may want to argue that they ought not to have transmitted Islamic ideology to their trainees and rather kept it fully "secular" so to say, but it's not an act of Shia sectarianism at any rate.
If we take the Iran/Iraq conflict as an example, because you mentioned it. Pakistan remained neutral, there was a lot of pressure on Pakistan to side with Iraq, but Pakistan stood it's ground and remained neutral. I have heard or read stories where Pakistan actually helped Iran, I do not remember where I read it so I won't push on this point but I do remember reading about it somewhere.
Yes, as far as I know, Pakistan helped by supplying some medics to treat wounded Iranian soldiers.
In my book, helping Armenia is simply unforgivable.
As said, I've never seen any evidence to this effect. Only real material proof I've seen is of Iranian help for Azarbaijan early during the first Karabakh war, and then observable Iranian military neutrality in the conflict, while Iran also publicly acknowledged Baku's legal claim to Karabakh.
