In an open letter, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged Americans to look beyond the “flood of distortion” as the war rages on.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called on Americans to look beyond the “flood of distortions and fabricated narratives” and ask whose interests the US and Israel’s war against Iran is serving.
In an open letter to the American people shared by Iranian state broadcaster Press TV on Wednesday, Pezeshkian questioned whether President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy is “really one of the priorities of the U.S. government today.”
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“What in the world is this war really in the interests of the American people?” the Iranian leader wrote.
“Does bragging about slaughtering innocent children, destroying pharmaceutical facilities for cancer treatment, or bombing countries that have returned to the Stone Age serve any purpose other than to further undermine America’s global standing? ”
Pezeshkian also declined to portray Iran as a threat, noting that Iranian negotiators were involved in multilateral nuclear negotiations twice when the United States decided to attack Iran, in June 2025 and at the end of February this year.
“Attacks on Iran’s critical infrastructure, including energy and industrial facilities, directly target Iranian citizens. Such acts not only constitute war crimes, but have consequences far beyond Iran’s borders.”
“They create instability, increase human and economic costs, perpetuate cycles of tension, and sow the seeds of resentment that last for years. This is not a sign of strength, but of strategic embarrassment and an inability to achieve sustainable solutions.”
The Iranian president’s letter came just hours after President Trump issued his latest threat against Iran, writing on social media that the United States would “continue to blow Iran into oblivion, or back to the Stone Age as they call it.” Unless the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.
The US president also said that Iran’s “new regime president” had called for a ceasefire to end the war, a claim Iranian officials denied.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Iran’s capital Tehran on Wednesday night, said the United States and the Iranian government are fighting a “war of narratives” amid a deadly conflict.
Against this background, Mr. Hashem explained that a key element of Mr. Pezeshkian’s letter is that the country maintains its right to defend itself from attacks by the United States and Israel. The Iranian president also stressed that Iran “bears no hostility” toward other countries or American citizens.
President Trump is scheduled to give a speech in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday at 9pm local time (1am Japan time Thursday) to share what the White House said will be an “important update on Iran.”
“While the US government is trying to push a narrative of victory, the Iranian establishment is trying to push a narrative of being under attack,” Hashem said.
Israeli influence
Meanwhile, in the letter, the Iranian president also questioned whether the Trump administration was “manipulated” by Israel, the United States’ largest ally in the Middle East, in launching the war against Iran on February 28.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been urging the United States to attack Iran for decades and is trying to derail Washington’s diplomacy with Iran, experts say.
Since the war began last month, the Israeli military has also claimed responsibility for several attacks on Iranian critical infrastructure, further escalating the conflict.
“Isn’t it also true that the United States participated in this invasion on Israel’s behalf, influenced and manipulated by that regime?” Pezeshkian said in Wednesday’s letter.
He also asked whether Israel was trying to “divert world attention from its crimes against the Palestinian people” by “creating an Iranian threat.”
“Isn’t it clear that Israel now aims to fight Iran for the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer’s money, shifting the burden of its delusions onto Iran, the region, and America itself in pursuit of unfair advantage?” he wrote.
