WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — President Donald Trump on Friday ruled out any agreement with Iran short of what he called its “unconditional surrender”, escalating the administration’s demands as the war entered a more dangerous political phase and publicly tying any future settlement to the emergence of leadership he deems acceptable.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said there would be “no deal” with Tehran unless it first capitulated, adding that after that, and the selection of “GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s)”, the United States and its allies would help pull Iran back from destruction and rebuild its economy. He ended the message with a slogan of his own invention, “Make Iran Great Again”, or “MIGA”.
The statement amounted to a hardening of Trump’s already maximalist public position on Iran, shifting the conversation further away from diplomacy and closer to open demands for political transformation in Tehran. Reuters reported that Trump had already signalled he wanted a say in Iran’s future leadership, and his latest post made that ambition more explicit.
The language also landed at a moment when mediation efforts were beginning to surface in public reporting, making the message notable not only for its severity but for its rejection of the kind of negotiated off-ramp that diplomats usually seek in a regional war.∎
