One Tuesday morning, the President of the United States posted on Truth Social, "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again."

Soon after, my thoughts flashed back to one of the world's most celebrated Persian poets, Omar Khayyam, and his most famous poetic lines from the "Rubaiyat":

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou / Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- / Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"

Only a beautiful civilization could have uttered these beautiful words.

But then I read Trump's words again, slowly. Not "the regime will fall." Not "the military will be destroyed." Not even "the infrastructure will be degraded." A whole civilization. Never to be brought back again.

The civilization in question is Persian, one of the oldest and most consequential in human history. The people who gave the world algebra, poetry, architecture and philosophy going back more than 2,500 years.

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