Biblical Sites, Ancient Wonders, the Last ‘Garden of Eden’: Here’s What Trump Just Threatened to Bomb in Iran
Late last week, using what has apparently become an official channel of communication, President Trump announced via his Twitter account that the U.S. military would target “52 Iranian sites…some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture” if Iran retaliated for the killing of its top military man and spy, Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The selection of 52 sites would symbolize, he said, the “52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago,” referring to the 1979 Tehran embassy siege.
Deliberately destroying sites of cultural heritage is, according to Irina Bokova a former director general of UNESCO, “a war crime” and “a strategy of cultural cleansing.” It was a strategy employed to great effect by ISIS. Apart from the fact that the President is threatening to use terrorist tactics to punish an entire people, it is worth looking at the significance of the heritage he is planning to eradicate.
Currently, there are 22 cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Iran. Among them is the ancient royal city of Persepolis, in the south-west of the country, which was once the capital of the Achaemenid empire in the sixth century BCE. UNESCO describes it as “among the world’s greatest archaeological sites” and having “no equivalent.” The city was founded in 518 BCE by Darius the Great and includes a number of remarkable palatial buildings, terraces, and an architecturally remarkable throne hall.