Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, says that “there is a glaring contradiction in Rubio’s recent speech: standing firm ‘to the last man’ is praised in the context of ancient Greece, yet the steadfastness of the great Iranian nation is disparaged with the label of a ‘death cult’.”
In a post on X, he criticised remarks made by Marco Rubio during a visit to Athens, where the US secretary of state drew parallels between ancient Greco-Persian conflicts and modern
“Mr Rubio, your problem is not with the Islamic Revolution; it is with a strong and independent Iranian civilisation.”
Velayati added that praising resistance when it applies to “one’s own” while disparaging it when it applies to “the other” is not civilisation, but dishonesty.
Velayati also stated that those who perpetrated the catastrophes of Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have no right to lecture others on morality.
