Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday afternoon released a letter to Americans attempting to sway public opinion away from the war, just hours before President Donald Trump gives a high-profile speech on the conflict.
Pezeshkian argued that joint U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran’s vital infrastructure, “including energy and industrial facilities,” are planting “seeds of resentment.” Trump vowed on Monday to soon obliterate such infrastructure, including on Kharg Island, unless Iran agrees to the U.S. peace proposal.
“Such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders,” Pezeshkian wrote, as the Pentagon investigates whether the U.S. was involved in deadly strikes on Iranian schools. “They generate instability, increase human and economic costs, and perpetuate cycles of tensions, planting seeds of resentment that will endure for years. This is not a demonstration of strength. It is a sign of strategic bewilderment and inability to achieve a sustainable solution.”
Pezeshkian’s letter comes shortly after Trump on Wednesday morning said Iran’s “new regime president” had requested a ceasefire, which the country denied. Trump is set to deliver a closely watched speech to the United States on Wednesday evening, providing voters with “an important update on Iran.”
The war against Iran began on Feb. 28, when the U.S. stressed concerns about the regime’s nuclear program and the hold the radicalized Islamic regime has over the global oil supply. The U.S. has been in peace talks with Iran since roughly March 21. Iranian officials have been publicly critical of talks, calling them “fake.” In private, they have been much more amenable to a deal, according to the U.S., as Tehran grapples with sweeping strikes that killed the country’s supreme leader and crippled its military capability and missile arsenal.
Pezeshkian rebutted accusations that Iran poses a danger to humanity on Wednesday, crediting such a view to “a machinery of misinformation” that has “invented” fears, marking a betrayal of Trump’s “America First” agenda.
“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?” he wrote. “Portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts. Such a perception is a 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.”
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Trump’s Wednesday address to the nation follows his argument on Sunday that Iran is in a weakened position, making it vulnerable to an energy takeover. The U.S. has bombed 13,000 out of roughly 16,000 targets in Iran, and “a deal could be made fairly quickly,” Trump said.
It remains unclear whether the U.S. will attempt a ground invasion of Iran or keep the operation limited in scope. The war has stretched on for roughly four weeks. The White House has said the war is expected to last between four and six weeks.
