‘Anachronism’: Rubio’s civilisational rhetoric prompts pushback from Iran

Rubio says threats faced by Western civilisation today are ‘every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity’. Save Share Tehran, Iran –A speech by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoking memories of ancient Persia has been met with coldness or disdain across the Iranian political spectrum amid Washington’s ongoing war on Iran. With the Acropolis in Athens as a backdrop, Rubio presented the United States, founded in the 18th century, as the inheritor of ancient Western civilisation running from Greece to Rome. During the speech, he argued that modern-day Western countries have lost their confidence, weakened their industries and militaries, and need renewed ambition and power in the future. Referencing the ancient Greco-Persian Wars, he used the Persian destruction of Athens in 480 BC under King Xerxes I as an example of Western civilisation surviving an external enemy. “The Persians plundered the temples, burned the shrines and razed the Acropolis to the ground,” Rubio said. He subsequently hailed the return of the Athenians and the construction of the Parthenon under Pericles. The top US diplomat also directed his rhetoric against Iran’s current leaders, who have been in power since a 1979 Islamic revolution, calling them “fanatics” who run a “death cult” that wields martyrdom as a tool to achieve their political objectives. “The threats we face today are every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity,” Rubio claimed. He boasted that the choice of President Donald Trump’s administration was the “unapologetic pursuit of national power”. The US and Iran have been at war since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28. While fighting between the two sides has subsided, the US has continued a naval blockade on Iran while shipping through the vital Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted. Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, and parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf both responded by invoking the Roman Emperor Valerian, who was captured alive by Persian King Shapur I’s forces in battle in 260 AD. “Anyone who brings history into this must be prepared for its repetition,” Rezaei said. Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Rubio of flattening Greek, Roman, Christian and modern history....