Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian released an open letter to the American public on Wednesday that questions prevailing U.S. foreign policy priorities and contests the depiction of Iran as a regional menace.
The letter arrived as President Trump prepared to address the American people on Wednesday evening. In his text, Pezeshkian traces the origins of U.S.-Iran tensions to the 1953 coup and condemns recent bombings targeting Iranian infrastructure.
Pezeshkian makes a distinction between governments and ordinary citizens, stating that Iran "harbors no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America." He frames the characterization of Iran as a threat as serving "political and economic whims of the powerful," arguing that such portrayals help "manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets."
Highlighting domestic developments, the Iranian president points to social gains since the Islamic Revolution, saying literacy has risen from 30% to over 90% and that higher education and healthcare services have expanded. He frames Iran's military behavior as restrained, describing it as a "measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense" rather than outright aggression.
In the letter, Pezeshkian presses the question of whether U.S. policies actually benefit American interests. He asks rhetorically whether actions such as "the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country 'back to the stone ages'" accomplish anything other than further harming the United States' global standing.
The message also accuses the United States of acting "as a proxy for Israel," claiming that Israel "seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians." He asks if Israel's objective is "to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar."
Pezeshkian closes by questioning whether "America First" remains the guiding priority of the U.S. government and urges Americans to "look beyond the machinery of misinformation" when forming views about Iran.
Context note: The letter was released publicly on Wednesday and coincided with a planned address by President Trump later that evening.