IRGC says that American people and Iranians share the same oppressors.

The Meaning of “Death to America”

In light of what has been said, it should be fairly obvious that the phrase “Death to America,” which Iranians have been chanting since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, does not in any way express any ill will toward the American people, who have themselves suffered from the same oppression. “Death to America” is a prayer for the eradication of the diabolical ruling elite whose seat of power is the White House. It is a cry born of the pain of oppression. Do the oppressed not have the right to wish death upon the evil oppressors responsible for killing their brothers, sisters, parents, and children, for plundering their natural resources, and for denigrating their millennia-old cultural heritage?

The men enthroned at the White House oppress both Iranians and Americans. The difference between the two nations is that, as Iranians, we have made up our mind to free ourselves from their oppression, and we are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices, because Islam requires believers to stand up to tyrants who only understand the language of power, whose first inclination is to bully and humiliate those weaker than them, and who—for all their disingenuous talk of human rights and human dignity—are more than willing to resort to oppression, repression, and ethnic, racial, and financial discrimination. Iran, in a word, is determined to confront with force any tyrannical power that is hostile to the elevating and liberating tenets of Islam and seeks to oppress the noble people of Iran. But toward the people of other nations—including the hardworking and honest people of America—Iran not only harbors no ill-will but is ready to offer any help they may need to liberate themselves from the tyranny of oppressive powers.

No genuinely popular revolution in history has escaped the hostility of the powers that be. Nevertheless, the hostility that the American government has directed at the people of Iran in the course of the last 47 years is of a scope and ferocity that has rarely been witnessed in human history. The countless instances of American hostility toward Iran can fill volumes, and so a complete review of the long list of crimes and wrongs committed by successive U.S. administrations against the people of Iran is obviously beyond what we can consider here. Nonetheless, recounting a few examples of these crimes and wrongs would be enough to convince any unbiased American that Iranians should not be faulted for chanting “Death to America.”