Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has penned an open letter to the American public, in which he appealed to them to “look beyond” what he characterized as “the machinery of misinformation” amid the U.S.-Israeli war with his country.
“Portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts,” he wrote. “Such a perception is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful—the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets. In such an environment, if a threat does not exist, it is invented.”
Pezeshkian’s open letter, which he shared on X on Wednesday afternoon, comes a little over a month after the U.S. and Israel launched the initial military strikes on Iran that began the war. President Donald Trump is expected to share an update on the conflict in a speech to the American public on Wednesday evening.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that “Iran’s New Regime President” has requested a ceasefire. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that Trump’s assertion was “false and baseless,” according to a report on Iranian state television, The Associated Press reported.
Pezeshkian did not mention Trump’s claim in his letter. But he said that “the Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries.”
“Despite its historical and geographical advantages at various times, Iran has never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination,” he asserted. “Even after enduring occupation, invasion, and sustained pressure from global powers—and despite possessing military superiority over many of its neighbors—Iran has never initiated a war. Yet it has resolutely and bravely repelled those who have attacked it.”
He went on to say that the U.S. has deployed a significant portion of its military forces in the area surrounding Iran, adding that “recent American aggressions launched from these very bases have demonstrated how threatening such a military presence truly is.”
“Naturally, no country confronted with such conditions would forgo strengthening its defensive capabilities,” Pezeshkian said. “What Iran has done—and continued to do—is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression.”
Pezeshkian questioned whether the war was truly in the interest of the American people, and accused the U.S. of entering the war “as a proxy for Israel.” He alleged that Israel, “by manufacturing an Iranian threat, seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians.”
“Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the U.S. government today?” Pezeshkian said. “I invite you to look beyond the machinery of misinformation—an integral part of this aggression—and instead speak with those who have visited Iran. Observe the many accomplished Iranian immigrants—educated in Iran—who now teach and conduct research at the world’s most prestigious universities, or contribute to the most advanced technology firms in the West. Do these realities align with the distortions you are being told about Iran and its people?”
Israel and the Trump Administration have offered shifting and at times contradictory explanations for why they launched the war on Iran in the weeks since it began. But Trump and Administration officials have previously denied that the U.S. was pushed into the war by Israel, and both the U.S. and Israel have claimed that the strikes were defensive or preemptive, though neither has shared any evidence that Iran was preparing to attack them.
Asked days after the initial strikes if Israeli leadership pulled the U.S. into the conflict, Trump stated that he decided to attack because he believed that Iran would otherwise do so first.
“Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand. But Israel was ready and we were ready,” Trump said on March 3.
Polls indicate that most Americans have disapproved of the war since the beginning and that it remains widely unpopular in the U.S. a month in, despite the support of many Republicans.
The post Iranian President Pens Open Letter to American People appeared first on TIME.
