Iran is at war with the United States, Israel, and Europe, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said several months after President Donald Trump ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities. According to Pezeshkian, this is a full-scale confrontation in which external forces, in his assessment, are seeking to prevent the country from strengthening. He made the remarks in an interview published on Saturday on the website of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The statement came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared for a visit to the United States, where talks with Trump focused on Iran are scheduled in the coming days. U.S. strikes in June marked a turning point in the nearly two-week armed conflict between Iran and Israel, dubbed the “12-day war,” which ended with a ceasefire in late June brokered with the involvement of the American president.
However, Pezeshkian said, the White House’s resumption of a policy of stringent sanctions against Tehran following Trump’s return to the Oval Office in January means the tensions are far from over. “Here, we are being besieged from every direction, placed under difficult and restrictive conditions, and confronted with problems—in livelihoods, culture, politics, and security—while social expectations are being raised at the same time,” he said. On the one hand, he added, sales, financial operations, and trade are being blocked; on the other, social expectations are rising, a combination that, in his assessment, demands the maximum mobilization of efforts to stabilize the country.