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

Rubio says threats to Western civilisation today 'every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity'.

Rubio says threats to Western civilisation today ‘every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity’. Rubio says threats faced by Western civilisation today are ‘every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity’. 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