I am not surprised that the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani demanded in his interview with an Italian newspaper that the United States should apologise to his country before the countries opened embassies in the capitals of each others’ countries. Falsification of history has become synonymous with talking about conflict in the region until you no longer know who the aggressor is and who the victim is.

The American government seems desperate to be friendly with the Iranian authorities and prepared to bend over backwards in order to respond to its requests. The only price that Iran paid for this love was accepting the freezing of its nuclear programme which the White House considers to be an achievement as great as the rapprochement with China or the collapse of the Berlin Wall! The question is: what does President Rouhani want the Americans to apologise for? Who wronged who?

By doing a simple calculation, we find that most of the victims during the decades of tension have been American. Even if one of the members of Congress asked the Secretary of State John Kerry a number of times about how many Americans the Iranian regime had killed, he would not be able to give a specific number.

Iran’s history of violence is a long one and began with the detention of US embassy staff in Tehran, followed by 17 Americans being killed in an attack on the embassy in Beirut and 241 Americans being killed at the Marines’ barracks, also in Beirut. The Iranians also masterminded an attack on the Marines’ building in the city of Khobar, Saudi Arabia in which 19 Americans were killed and 240 wounded. In addition to this, they also hijacked a TWA flight. Iranian authorities are also responsible for tens of other operations against American people or interests in our region, in Europe, South America and even in Washington itself where American security foiled a conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Hundreds of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were also targeted with the support of Iran.