The IRGC letter asserts that the current US war against Iran is only the latest chapter in a conflict that goes back to 1953 “the year in which the CIA aided and abetted the Shah’s regime to stage a coup and topple the legitimate and popular government of Iran, headed by the Americanophile prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh.” The letter does not mention that the CIA was the junior partner to Britain’s MI-6 intelligence agency in the coup plot or that it was the British response to Mossadegh’s effort to nationalize Iran’s oil resources for the benefit of Iranians.

“The 1953 coup marked the beginning of America’s involvement in Iran, and over the decades the U.S. government exploited Iran’s natural resources and utilized its strategic geopolitical location to exert greater control over the entire region,” it says. And when the shah was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Iranian people “simply wanted to be free, to control their own resources, and to preserve and practice their national and religious values.”

Instead, the CIA, through the US embassy, “actively undertook efforts to undermine and overthrow the newly formed Islamic Republic.” The letter only ambiguously refers to the takeover of the U.S. embassy and the ensuing hostage crisis but seems to treat it as a response to this CIA activity rather than as a response to President Jimmy Carter’s decision to allow the shah to come to the US for medical treatment, something that Carter was warned would be “seriously prejudicial” to U.S. interests and to the security of Americans in Iran.