Israel plans to fight Iran “to the last American soldier, and the last American taxpayer dollar”, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote in an open letter released on Wednesday, hours before US President Donald Trump is set to deliver a primetime address on the war.
Pezeshkian’s letter, addressed to the American people and published on PressTV, says that they were being fed an image of Iran crafted by a “machinery of misinformation” and how portraying Iran as a threat was “neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts”.
“Iran has never initiated a war,” he wrote. “Yet it has resolutely and bravely repelled those who have attacked it. The Iranian people harbour no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighbouring countries.”
The letter comes hours before US President Donald Trump is set to deliver a primetime address anticipated to offer insights into how the war will develop.
The Trump administration has sent mixed signals.
The US president spoke earlier in the day with his Emirati counterpart, Mohamed bin Zayed. The UAE has emerged as one of the most hawkish Gulf states on Iran. Middle East Eye previously reported that it was prepared for the war to last up to nine months and was pushing for a more aggressive US posture.
The call comes as European states and Bahrain are drafting different proposals for how to wrest control of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran. The UK plans to host talks on a coalition to police the Strait of Hormuz, and another measure is being discussed at the United Nations.
Analysts and diplomats are speculating whether the US could launch an invasion of Iranian islands in the Gulf.
Meanwhile, the US is also weighing a plan to send ground troops to extract enriched uranium from bombed nuclear sites, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, saying that Trump requested a briefing on this plan.
These reports, which signal a protracted conflict, come as the White House says negotiations with Tehran are ongoing.
Mixed picture
Trump has vacillated between threatening Iran with “obliteration” if it does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or simply walking away from the war.
“We’ll leave whether we have a deal or not. It’s irrelevant,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
But a report from The New York Times on Wednesday suggests the US is preparing for tougher fighting ahead. The Pentagon is doubling its Middle East fleet of Air Force A-10 attack planes that are intended to provide air support to ground troops.
Known as “Warthogs”, they are designed around a seven-barrel Gatling gun that fires 30-millimetre shells. They can also launch Maverick missiles and GPS-guided bombs.
Further clouding the situation are efforts by Pakistan to mediate an end to the conflict and Trump’s remarks that Iran wants a ceasefire.
Trump said on Wednesday that “Iran’s New Regime President” was “less Radicalised and far more intelligent than his predecessors” and had asked the US for a ceasefire. Iran does not have a new president, and it’s unclear who Trump was referring to.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, rejected Trump’s assertion that Tehran had asked for a ceasefire as “false and baseless”.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that JD Vance spoke to intermediaries from Pakistan, indicating that Trump was open to a ceasefire as long as US demands were met. But in the same breath, Vance also delivered a “stern message” that Trump was growing “impatient”, which would mean greater pressure on Iranian infrastructure.
Iran has laid out five conditions to end the war, which include guarantees against further attacks, war reparations and recognition of its control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Pezeshkian offers a history of US-Iran relations
Pezeshkian’s letter appeared to be an attempt to lay out Tehran’s views to the American people before Trump’s address.
He laid out a detailed history of US-Iranian relations, which “were not originally hostile”. He said ties were hurt by a US-UK orchestrated coup against Iran’s democratically-elected nationalist leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in 1953.
“This distrust deepened further with America’s support for the Shah’s regime, its backing of Saddam Hussein during the imposed war of the 1980s, the imposition of the longest and most comprehensive sanctions in modern history, and ultimately, unprovoked military aggression twice, in the midst of negotiations,” he wrote.
The history of US-Iranian relations is not often noted in US media coverage of the war, but has become more widely discussed on left-leaning podcasts and, increasingly, by right-wing podcasters like Tucker Carlson and others.
The Iranian president attempted to tap into the war’s unpopularity with the US public.
“Which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war?” he wrote.
“Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime?” He added that Israel wanted to distract “from its crimes toward the Palestinians”, in an apparent reference to what the UN and dozens of world leaders have called a genocide in Gaza. Over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on the enclave since October 2023.
“Is it not evident that Israel now aims to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar?” he wrote.
The US and Israel started the war on 28 February by launching air strikes on Iran and killing former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening salvos.
The conflict has since widened to a war on energy infrastructure. Israel has attacked Iran’s gas field and fuel terminals. The Islamic Republic has retaliated by attacking US bases, infrastructure and other targets in the Arab Gulf states.
The war has rippled across the global economy, sending energy prices higher. It has also sparked a major rift in transatlantic relations, with Trump threatening to withdraw from Nato over the alliance’s unwillingness to join the US-Israeli attack on Iran.
