Iran president releases searing open letter

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has officially released a four-page “open letter” to the American people.

However, many social media users have pointed out that if the average American were as well educated as the average Iranian, perhaps the US would not have started so many illegal wars.

The letter lays out, in a calm and reasoned manner, why the world is currently in the state it’s in.

Unlike most of Trump’s unhinged rants on Truth Social, which may as well have been transcribed from a toddler’s ramble.

Iran responding to aggression

The letter starts by explaining that Iran has never initiated a war in its modern history – it has only responded to “aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination”. Even after occupation, invasion, and sustained pressure from global superpowers, and despite having a military that is far superior to many of its neighbours.

It then goes on to say that, unlike what the US wants us to believe, Iran harbours no hatred towards other countries, including the US and Europe. It reads:

The Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries. Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness—not a temporary political stance

Which is why portraying Iran as a threat is:

neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts.

US manufacturing an enemy

It adds that the perception is purely a product of “political and economic whims” of the powerful. The US needs to “manufacture an enemy” to justify its illegal wars and colonialism, whilst sustaining its arms industry.

If a threat does not exist, it’s invented.

He adds:

What Iran has done and continues to do-is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression

The letter also guides readers back to 1953, when the US (and the UK) engineered an illegal coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister.

Why? Because Mossadegh decided to nationalise the operations of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum) in 1951.

Of course, nationalisation was a threat to both the US and UK’s strategic and economic interests, i.e., they would lose money.

That coup disrupted Iran’s democratic process, reinstated dictatorship, and sowed deep distrust among Iranians toward U.S. policies. This distrust deepened further with America’s support for the Shah’s regime, its backing of Saddam Hussein during the imposed war of 1980s, the imposition of the longest and most comprehensive sanctions in modern history, and ultimately, unprovoked military aggression-twice, in the midst of negotiations— against Iran.

But these pressures have not weakened Iran. Literacy rates have tripled, higher education has rapidly expanded, and modern technology and healthcare have advanced.

Of course, the impact of the destructive and inhumane sanctions from war and aggression cannot be underestimated:

This reflects a fundamental human truth: when war inflicts irreparable harm on lives, homes, cities, and futures, people will not remain indifferent toward those responsible

The letter asks:

Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war? Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior? Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country “back to the stone ages” serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States’ global standing?

‘Strategic bewilderment’

Pezeshkian writes:

Iran pursued negotiations, reached an agreement, and fulfilled all its commitments. The decision to withdraw from that agreement, escalate toward confrontation, and launch two acts of aggression in the midst of negotiations were destructive choices made by the U.S. government-choices that served the delusions of a foreign aggressor.

He then talks about the US targeting Iran’s energy infrastructure and industrial facilities. Obviously, this directly targets the Iranian people. He adds:

Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders. They generate instability, increase human and economic costs, and perpetuate cycles of tension, planting seeds of resentment that will endure for years. This is not a demonstration of strength; it is a sign of strategic bewilderment and an inability to achieve a sustainable solution

Finally, he points out that America has entered this illegal war as a proxy for Israel. The Israeli machine has influenced and manipulated it by manufacturing an Iranian ‘threat’.

Of course, this is purely an effort to divert attention away from Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians.

He ends the letter with:

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?

Featured image via HG