Iran president asks US people if Mid-East war puts ‘America First’
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Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said US actions constitute war crimes and said US is being influenced by Israel.
PHOTO: AFP
- Iranian President Pezeshkian accuses the US of war crimes and acting as a proxy for Israel in the ongoing Middle East conflict.
- Pezeshkian questions if the war truly serves "America First" interests, citing economic costs, instability, and long-term resentment.
- Trump will address the nation amid plunging approval, stating a ceasefire is conditional on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
AI generated
TEHRAN - Iran’s president asked the people of the United States if the Middle East conflict was truly putting “America First”, accusing the US of war crimes and being influenced by Israel ahead of a much-anticipated address by US President Donald Trump.
Sparked by a US-Israeli offensive launched against Iran on Feb 28, the war has rippled across the Middle East, creating global economic turmoil.
More than a month in, Mr Trump claimed on April 1 that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was seeking a ceasefire, a claim Tehran has denied.
“Attacking Iran’s vital infrastructure – including energy and industrial facilities – directly targets the Iranian people,” Mr Pezeshkian said in an open letter, published to his website on April 1.
“Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders.”
They sow “instability, increase human and economic costs”, and plant “seeds of resentment that will endure for years”, he continued.
“Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war?“
Casting the conflict as costly for both sides, Mr Pezeshkian asked if there had been “any objective threat from Iran to justify such behaviour”.
He also questioned whether Washington entered the war “as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime”.
“Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the US government today?“ Mr Pezeshkian asked.
He also said ordinary Americans were not Iran’s enemy, “even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures”.
His letter came ahead of Mr Trump’s prime-time address to Americans on the Iran war in the face of plunging approval rates, economic jitters and spiralling diplomatic fallout.
Mr Trump on April 1 said he would consider a ceasefire only when the Strait of Hormuz was reopened, with Tehran’s effective closure of the vital oil corridor sending shockwaves through the global economy. AFP
