TEHRAN — The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) has published a 26-page open letter to the American people this week, urging them to break with the foreign policy of their government and to reconsider what they have been told about U.S. wars in West Asia.

The letter is addressed to scholars, students and media workers. It says the American public is not the target of Iran's resistance. Rather, the target is a political class that turns war into a business and uses the country's power against people in the region and at home.

"The men enthroned at the White House oppress both Iranians and Americans," the letter states.

The letter is signed by the IRGC's public relations office and circulated in English and Persian. Its central message is that Americans have been misled about Iran and about their own government's role in the region.

Much of the document calls on Americans to separate themselves from the "U.S. war machine." It asks university communities to refuse research and media work that helps plan or justify attacks that kill civilians. It says silence in the face of such policies makes Americans complicit in decisions taken in their name. "This is not a call for hostility toward Americans, but for them to hold their own leaders accountable," the letter reads.

The letter then lists historical grievances that it says explain the hostile nature of Iran-U.S. ties. It begins with the U.S.-orchestrated 1953 coup in Iran, which installed a dictator and created the roots of decades of hostility. It points to the Iran-Iraq War, which it explains was an American-backed effort to destroy Iran's new government through Saddam Hussein. It also cites the 1988 downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, calling it a crime that was rewarded instead of punished.

The letter adds that these policies continue through sanctions, covert operations and support for armed groups opposed to Iran. It asks Americans to "test that record against what they have been told about Iran by their own media and politicians."

On its designation as a "terrorist" organization by the U.S. government, the IRGC rejects the label as a political tool used by Washington to isolate and silence its opponents. It says the American people should see the IRGC "not as a threat but as the main line of defense against Western and Zionist domination." Iran's resistance is regional and defensive, the letter says, while U.S. power is expansionist and driven by interests outside the region.

The document is written from the position of an Iran that, it says, has survived a major military aggression launched by the United States and Israel on February 28, 2026. The letter devotes several pages to that aggression. It says the war failed to break Iran's will or change its course, and that the "outcome has exposed the limits of American military power in the region."

From that experience, the IRGC draws a larger conclusion: the United States is a declining power, and Iran's doctrine and worldview have already won a moral and strategic victory.

"It is perfectly clear which of the two leaders God supports," the letter says, contrasting Iran's leadership with a "self-enriching" elite in Washington.

The IRGC also accuses American politicians of treating foreign wars as financial opportunities. It notes that some trade stocks based on the outcomes of conflicts. It says the same leaders who speak of democracy and human rights have little concern for the Americans who bear the costs of war. That charge, the letter says, should unite Americans and Iranians rather than divide them.

The closing section is a warning. "America's crimes have turned the world into a powder keg that is ready to explode," the letter states. It says the American public has the power and the responsibility to stop a course that is unsustainable and dangerous for West Asia and for the United States itself.

The letter ends by invoking the Golden Rule, found in the Talmud and the Gospels, and calls on Americans to demand immediate change before more conflict spreads.