TEHRAN — Major General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, invoked the Sasanian defeat of Rome to counter U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s civilizational war framing in Athens. 
“Whoever brings history into it must be ready for its repetition,” Rezaei wrote, recalling Emperor Valerian’s 260 AD capture by Shapur I. His remarks followed repeated Trump threats to bombard Iran and “bring them back to the stone ages.”