Just to point out few more ironies.
All those people talking about Spartans protecting Western heritage make me laugh. The values of modern Western civilization are very close to the ones of Achemenide empire and have almost nothing in common with true Spartan values.
Achemenide empire was a vast centralised bureaucracy that nominally cared about all subjects. Spartans were ruthless slave owning oligarchs. If 300 Spartans appeared in a local mall, the general US populace would run away in terror. Army units would be called immediately and the stand-off wouldn’t last six days or even six hours. All 300 would still die, that’s a given.
Regarding the question who were the real barbarians, Persians or Spartans, the answer is neither. The real barbarians are the XXI century gawkers, lusting for more and more digital gore and mayhem. That makes them just like the mobs of late Roman and Persian empires, demanding endless “bread and circuses”.
In defence of Islam: it didn’t overturn Achemenide empire. Islam came on the scene much later and swept away the ancient paganistic states in Middle East and Northern Africa, that were extremely corrupt and disgusting. Before Islam, Christianity performed similar function against decomposing Roman empire. So both Islam and Christianity were civilizing and progressive movements originally. Present day Iran mullahcracy is another matter entirely, of course.
