Speaking in Athens on October 7 with the Acropolis behind him, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cast the United States as the inheritor of Western civilisation from Greece to Rome, cited the Persian destruction of Athens in 480 BC as the template of external threat, and called Iran’s post-1979 leaders “fanatics” running a “death cult” that uses martyrdom as a political tool.
Iran’s answer came in kind. Security chief Mohsen Rezaei warned that anyone who brings history into this must be prepared for its repetition, while parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf invoked the Roman Emperor Valerian’s capture by Persian King Shapur I in 260 AD. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei called the speech “anachronism,” accusing Rubio of rehashing buried history to legitimize military escalation.