Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei has firmly rejected a “new deceptive narrative” peddled by American officials, who claim the United States did not start the war with Iran and that Tehran somehow initiated hostilities with the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In a detailed post on X on Saturday, Baghaei said Washington is desperately trying to evade responsibility for the “catastrophic human, economic, and geopolitical consequences” of its unlawful aggression against the Islamic Republic.  

He stressed that the 1979 Islamic Revolution was a legitimate struggle by the Iranian people to reclaim their sovereignty, freedom, and human dignity after decades of foreign interference, particularly the bitter memory of the 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh.

“Military aggression has a clear definition,” Baghaei stated. “No matter how desperately American officials try to evade the issue, they cannot erase from the minds of the American people or the world the fact that it was the United States that twice, in less than nine months, launched unprovoked aggression against Iran in the midst of diplomatic negotiations.”

He pointed to the US-Israeli military offensive that began on February 28, during which American forces assassinated senior Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader  Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, killed and wounded Iranian women and children, and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure.  

Baghaei noted that Washington had now reached a military and political dead end and was attempting both to deny responsibility for starting the war and to conceal its failure to achieve its objectives behind a false narrative of victory.

He added that the American political establishment had itself acknowledged at the highest levels that the war against Iran was the principal cause of its electoral defeat.

Turning to the deeper historical roots of the conflict, the Iranian official listed a long chain of US hostile actions: the 1953 coup; Washington’s political, intelligence, military, and financial support for Saddam Hussein’s regime during the eight-year imposed war on Iran; the Reagan administration’s complicity in Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian civilians and soldiers; the obstruction of UN Security Council efforts to hold Baghdad accountable; direct US Navy involvement in Saddam’s aggression in April 1988; the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf in July 1988, killing all 290 people on board; sweeping economic sanctions designed to harm the Iranian people; the unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA and the reinstatement of the “maximum pressure” campaign; the assassination of anti-terror commander Qassem Soleimani; and numerous other interventions.

“The United States cannot escape responsibility for its decision to launch an unlawful war of choice against Iran on 28 February 2026 by turning back the clock or redefining the meaning of war,” Baghaei concluded. “The United States has been both the instigator of historical hostility toward the Iranian nation and the initiator of military aggression against Iran.”

Iran tells UN Security Council to stop reversing roles of 'aggressor and victim'

Iran’s ambassador to the UN has slammed Western members of the Security Council for their double standards, demanding the US immediately end its war of aggression and lift its illegal blockade.

The remarks come amid continued US attempts to pressure Iran through military threats, economic blockade measures, and efforts to recruit other countries into hostile actions in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, actions that Tehran has repeatedly warned will be met with a crushing and proportionate response.

Iranian officials have consistently maintained that any further aggression will expand the war beyond US control, while reaffirming the Islamic Republic’s readiness to defend its sovereignty and the security of the region.