Iran's President Says the Country Is at War, but What Exactly Does That Mean?

The United States and Iran have long had a pretty contentious relationship. The U.S.'s allies in the region have always been enemies of Iran, and while the conflict between the two countries has never erupted into all-out war, there have long been concerns that it eventually could.

Following a new statement from the president of Iran, many are again wondering whether Iran declared war on the United States. Here's what we know.

Iran's official position with respect to the United States has long been to view the country as an enemy, but because Iran knows that open warfare would leave it at a disadvantage, it has never declared war. In a recent interview with Iranian state media, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made it clear that he sees the conflict with the U.S. and with some of its allies as an "all-out war."

“In my view, we are in an all-out war with the United States, Israel, and Europe; they do not want our country to stand on its own feet,” he said. He also said that he sees this war differently from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

“If one understands it properly, this war is far more complex and more difficult than that war,” he said. “In the war with Iraq, the situation was clear; they fired missiles, and it was clear where we would strike back."

"But here, they are now besieging us in every respect, putting us under pressure and in tight corners, creating problems — economically, culturally, politically, and in terms of security,” he continued.

Pezeshkian appears to have made these comments ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The relationship between Iran and Israel has been openly hostile in recent years, and Netanyahu apparently plans to brief Trump on Iran.

While neither the U.S. nor Iran has openly invaded the other country, the nature of modern warfare is such that this kind of open warfare often isn't necessary. Instead, countries sometimes send attacks at one another and live in a state of cold war, acknowledging one another as enemies without openly seeking to conquer one another.

Of course, these kinds of cold wars can easily erupt into more overtly hostile attacks and can sometimes result in active war. Right now, though, there's no indication that Iran is planning to attack the United States, although it's certainly the case that they would not telegraph such plans ahead of time.

President Trump, meanwhile, remains a volatile and unpredictable presence. As NBC News reported, he has suggested that he might be open to restarting talks with Iran on a deal that halts their nuclear program. That program was originally negotiated by the Obama administration, and Trump tore it up during his first administration. For now, Pezeshkian's comments don't change the fundamentally hostile nature of the relationship between Iran and the United States.