Culture vs. barbarism: Is Grossi setting stage for Trump's aggression on Iran's heritage?

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, just two days after US President Donald Trump ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, UN nuclear agency chief Rafael Grossi claimed that “nearly 900 pounds” of enriched uranium could not be located.

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, however, pressed him to specify where the material might have been moved by Iranian authorities prior to the American aggression, an act of aggression that, considering the occupant of the White House was a megalomaniac reality TV star-turned-president, was hardly unexpected.

MacCallum cited Grossi’s earlier remarks, in which he claimed the uranium had been moved to an “ancient site” near the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

“I have to be very precise, Martha… We are the IAEA, so we are not speculating here,” Grossi replied. “We do not have information on the whereabouts of this material.”

His vague response was calculated, particularly at a moment when he was imploring Iranian authorities to permit the resumption of inspections at nuclear sites – after the bombings.

“So, it is quite obvious, you are asking me about it, there is a question there: Where is this?” Grossi remarked. “So, the way to assert that is to allow the inspection activity to resume as soon as possible. And I think this would be for the benefit of all.”

Still, his earlier statement had already been seized upon by Western media outlets, including Fox News, a network closely aligned with hawkish elements of the Trump administration

The channel is better known for theatrics than journalism, fitting for a president who seems less elected by the people and more dropped on them like a bad reality show plot twist.

Days before his Fox interview, in the middle of the Israeli aggression on Iran, an unprovoked and unlawful terrorist act that Grossi brazenly referred to as a “military operation,” he claimed that the new enrichment facility, announced by Iran’s atomic energy agency in response to the IAEA’s politically motivated report, would also be located in Isfahan.

Fox News appeared determined to extract a fresh confirmation from Grossi, hoping to hand the unhinged American president yet another pretext to launch a strike, this time against Iran’s iconic monuments, many of which are protected as UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Let us not forget that it was Grossi and the IAEA, an agency effectively hijacked by the Zionist regime, who laid the groundwork for Israel’s unprovoked aggression against the Islamic Republic on June 13 by issuing a disgraceful report on Iran’s peaceful nuclear program despite Grossi’s frequent visits to the very sites that were later bombed.

Grossi didn’t even feign concern over the blatant Israeli aggression on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz and Arak, let alone the US strikes that followed on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. So, rightly, the Iranian authorities are now pursuing legal action over his inaction.

Grossi plays by a glaring double standard: one set of rules for a country like Iran, an NPT signatory that allows regular inspections and has consistently declared no intention to pursue nuclear weapons, and a completely different playbook for a regime that refuses to join the NPT, shuts out IAEA inspectors, built a clandestine nuclear arsenal, and brazenly launches unprovoked attacks on the nuclear sites of a sovereign NPT member.

While Grossi flies to Tel Aviv for private lunches with Benjamin Netanyahu, briefing him on Iran’s nuclear matters, as revealed by recent intelligence documents, he always arrives in Tehran with hidden and sinister motives and returns to Vienna shrouded in malice.

Now, in the wake of the Israeli and American aggression against the Islamic Republic and its peaceful nuclear facilities, sites under IAEA oversight, Grossi appears to be setting the stage for a potential American assault on Iran’s cultural sites.

Their chosen target is Isfahan, a city in central Iran steeped in history and culture, once the capital of the majestic Safavid Empire, and one of the country's most famous tourist destinations, even for American travelers, including Trump voters.

Any strike on Isfahan would be nothing short of an assault on the soul of great Iranian civilization. It would be an attack on centuries of culture and heritage, concepts utterly foreign to the likes of Trump, Netanyahu, and Grossi. 

It's an open battle between culture and barbarism, between civilization and primitivism. 

No civilized individual would reasonably suggest that enriched uranium is stashed in a centuries-old heritage site. It is a fabricated excuse to justify an attack on the cultural essence of Iran, a bid to manufacture consent through delusional, baseless claims.

Let we forget, it was the same American president who, in January 2020, after the cowardly assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani and just before Iran’s powerful retaliation, publicly threatened to bomb Iran’s cultural sites.

At the time, Trump bragged that 52 Iranian targets had been identified, many of which were cultural landmarks, despite the fact that both Tehran and Washington are signatories to international conventions protecting cultural heritage, even in times of war.

But as wise men would ask: when has the arrogant empire ever respected international law or conventions? Also, does this deranged man in the White House even understand laws?

Let’s make no mistake. This war that Trump is waging against the Islamic Republic is more than a military confrontation, more than a war against Iran’s nuclear program.

It is a war against a proud nation with a glorious history, one of the oldest civilizations known to humanity. Iran and Isfahan existed even before Columbus discovered Trump’s America.

This rich tapestry of history, culture, and civilization has become a nightmare for Iran’s enemies, particularly the US and its Zionist proxy, one they can neither rival nor erase.

During the latest Israeli-American aggression, which ended with the Zionist regime begging for a ceasefire, Americans and their proxies in Tel Aviv witnessed the Iranian people standing united and resilient behind their courageous armed forces and their martyrs.  

Today, hundreds of thousands will flood the streets of Tehran and beyond to bid farewell to martyred Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists.

Now imagine – how many would turn up for the funeral of Trump or Netanyahu?

That resilience, that unity, is the hallmark of a great civilization like Iran, and it terrifies those who have none of their own, from Washington to Tel Aviv to London and beyond.

So, Grossi’s words must be seen and decoded within the broader context – what Trump said in January 2020, and what that reveals about how the Iranian nation, steeped in great heritage and national identity, has become a thorn in the side of aggressors.

But any new act of aggression, reckless and foolish as it may be, will be answered fittingly, as top Iranian military commanders and senior diplomats have said in unequivocal terms.

Americans in the region won’t even have time to pack their bags, and the Zionists won’t even make it to their underground hideouts before the storm of missiles hits.

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