Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Commander Seyed Majid Moosavi on Thursday fired back at US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s “Back to the Stone Age,” saying, “…with your pathetic 250-year history, you are threatening a civilization that is over 6,000 years old.”
Hegseth echoed a remark made by US President Donald Trump during his address to the nation, where he said Iran would be hit so hard it would return “to the Stone Age”.
What exactly did Trump say?
Speaking to the nation, Trump said Iran would be hit “extremely hard” during ongoing diplomatic talks between the two sides to sign a deal to end the more than month-long conflict.
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“Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to hit them extremely hard. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Age where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are going on,” the US president said.
“Tonight, every American can look forward to the day when we are finally freed from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the specter of nuclear blackmail. Because of the actions we have taken, we are on the verge of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world,” he added.
Iran fires back
Pete Hegseth drew sharp criticism from Iran when he echoed Trumps “Stone Age” remark in a post on X.
Sayyid Hossein Mousavi, an Iranian military commander, echoed Hegseth’s remark while attacking him, saying, “It is you who are taking your soldiers to their graves, not Iran, who you are trying to drag back to the Stone Age.”
“Hollywood delusions have poisoned your mind so much that with your pathetic 250-year history you are threatening a civilization that is over 6,000 years old,” Mousavi wrote.
Earlier in the day, the Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Mumbai shared a screenshot of Hegseth’s “Stone Age” remark, questioning Washington’s agenda for their military action against the Islamic Republic.
The consulate noted that previously the US position was to make Iran “great again”, which has now shifted. It stated that the civilizations that arose from the time of the Achaemenid Empire in 550 BC were already great.
“They said Iran had to be ‘great again’. Now all of a sudden it’s a goal…stone age? Funny…civilizations that go back to empires like the Achaemenids don’t do it ‘again’.” They just are,” the consulate said in the post.
The statement underscores Tehran’s rejection of Washington’s aggressive rhetoric, while emphasizing Iran’s historical and cultural heritage that dates back to one of the world’s oldest empires.
US-Iran War
The development comes as diplomatic ties between Washington and Tehran continue amid conflict in West Asia following the February 28 joint US-Israeli military strikes on Iran.
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The strikes led to the death of Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after which Tehran retaliated by targeting Israeli and US assets in several Gulf countries, disrupting waterways and affecting international energy markets and global economic stability.
After the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his son Mojtaba Khamenei was named the new Supreme Leader of Iran by the country’s Assembly of Experts.
