FM spox: Rubio’s civilizational rhetoric aimed at ‘legitimizing war’
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismaeil Baqaei on Monday said portraying current tensions in the Middle East as a confrontation between Iranian and Western civilizations is aimed at “legitimizing war and aggression.”
In response to a question about recent civilizational rhetoric by the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Athens, Baqaei said Rubio’s comments about Greece’s history, Western civilization and the ancient wars between Greece and Iran should be viewed as part of Washington’s cognitive war against Iran.
During the speech in Athens on Wednesday, Rubio argued that modern-day Western countries have lost their confidence, weakened their industries and militaries, and need renewed ambition and power in the future.
“The Persians plundered the temples, burned the shrines and razed the Acropolis to the ground,” Rubio claimed. He subsequently hailed the return of the Athenians and the construction of the Parthenon under Pericles.
“Presenting a distorted interpretation of historical events to justify American warmongering is both dangerous and an injustice to Greek culture and civilization,” Baqaei said.
Baqaei underlined the United States cannot present itself as the representative of Western and Greek civilization.
He also rejected attempts to frame relations between Iran and the West as a “clash of civilizations,” noting that Iranian civilization had developed through intellectual exchange and engagement with other cultures.
“Iranians have always been competitive, but they have combined competition with interaction. We have never sought to assert our power or sustain our existence by negating others; we have engaged even with our rivals,” he said, citing the contribution of Iranian and Muslim scholars to the translation and interpretation of Greek thought.