Iranian President's Letter Asks 'Is Trump Putting America 1st?'

Interim Leadership Council started carrying out its responsibilities following Khameneiâs death, President Masoud Pezeshkian says — Source: Anadolu / Getty

Here’s a question all Americans need to be asking themselves right now: How bad does a U.S. president have to be for the president of Iran to be the leader standing on the moral high ground?

On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump delivered a speech that was supposed to serve as an “important update” on his completely unprovoked war of choice in Iran. The speech provided no such update. Instead, those who tuned in got to listen to the president shower himself with undeserved praise, claim victories that, clearly, no one can see but him, and generally repeat the same self-contradicting nonsense he’d been saying about the conflict in the weeks leading up to his utterly useless address.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has shared some of his own thoughts on the conflict, and asked some questions of his own to the U.S. populace, specifically: Is the president really putting “America first”?

“Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war?” Masoud Pezeshkian wrote in the letter, addressed “to the people of the United States of America” and posted on X hours before Trump gave his speech.

“Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the US government today?” he continued.

Pezeshkian noted in his letter that Iran has “never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination, and never initiated any war” and that the perception of his country being a threat is “the product of political and economic whims of the powerful.”

From CNN:

He asserted Tehran’s actions – which have included daily drone and missile strikes that have hit civilian and military infrastructure across the Gulf – have been “legitimate self-defense.”

It was not clear whether other elements of Iran’s leadership were involved in drafting the letter. The highest authority in the Islamic Republic, supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen or heard in public since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran more than a month ago.

Pezeshkian went on to imply a distinction between the US government and its people, saying his country has been misunderstood and that “Iranian people harbour no enmity towards other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries.”

“This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness–not a temporary political stance,” he said.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Iran certainly has a deep history, including a recent history, of oppression and human rights abuses against women, protesters, and innocent bystanders. Still, in this instance — with our current president being the corrupt, authoritarian, Constitution-defying wannabe dictator that he is — much of the world, including most of the U.S., is looking at Iran like it’s a victim fending off a bully.

To be fair, what recent polls have also indicated is that most U.S. citizens just want the war to end, whether Iran gives in to U.S. demands or not — and, so far, it has not.

Unfortunately, Trump’s speech Wednesday night gave no clear timeline for when the war might end; just vague promises that the operation will be completed “very shortly,” in “the next two to three weeks,” whenever the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, or some other time.

It’s exhausting. We’re all exhausted. And that exhaustion will continue as long as our current so-called leader remains in office, regardless of how things shake out in Iran.